Our vision is to change the way we pollinate to protect our environment and sustain our food supply. Join us on our pollinator journey! If you have questions about raising bees, bee houses, or about your shipment, please start a chat on our website - look for the leaf on the bottom right corner.
We could stick ours on a 6 foot by 3 foot banner and they still wouldn't see it. If only our courier drivers would stop just for 5 seconds and read. Done this plenty times before. Its as if they are on a schedule, like robots. Door bells are non-existent, its just a good job we have security cameras.. And you wonder why there are so many porch pirates about!
So incubation is when the larvae develop into the bee? If I harvested my own can I just put the cocoons into the drawer at let them incubate out there?
Incubation is an artificial means of helping the bee develop to an adult when we want it to. This applies more to summer bees. And yes, what you suggest is a natural process that occurs without our involvement. The only challenge is that they emerge when they want, which might not be in concert when you have a specific pollination need.
I have a hole design question. 4 years later hehe. The some of the reeds I got are not smooth inside. There is reed fiber sticking into the tubes on the insides. Some of them I wonder if the bees can even get in. Should I avoid using these reeds? The mason bees did not use the rough reeds, and the leafcutter size seem even more clogged.
The inside of lake bed reeds tend to be smooth. The outside edge, when not cut carefully, may have fiber fragments in front. By inserting a pencil/pen into the opening, you mostly are able to help these reeds become useful!
Don't waste your time with their website. Their website stinks.. confusing as hell and the keep jumping you around. They don't have a phone number to call with any questions with a live person. They need a better website developer. Today is Wednesday, and when I opened their chat window it said they won't be available until tomorrow Thursday.. i ordered Leafcutter bees, paid the $ 101.00 for lcutter box, attractant and bag,...but NO BEES... This package was supposed to come with bees ....I'm sure there are better places around to buy Mason and leafcutter bees with a better organized web site.
As it states directly on the product page for the Summer Leaf bees you ordered: ALL BEES SHIP SEPERATELY FROM PRODUCTS, SO THEY WILL NOT ARRIVE IN THE SAME PACKAGE, as well as a note on the photo of the bee to read all the entire description before ordering. For the health of the bees, we only ship Leafcutter bee cocoons on MONDAYS (May - August) to ensure they do not get stuck in transit over the weekend. Our small team is currently in process of updating our website and would like your feedback on how we can be any clearer on the Summer Leaf bee product page.
You can also try with Citronella escential oil, it is commonly used to repel mosquitoes and flies, but it seems that bees actually like it. Again, I don´t know if it will be effective with that specific type of fly, but it is worth trying
Is there any substance the flies are attracted to but the bees are not? perhaps using a tube with a smaller entrance, filled with syrup and whatever they're attracted to, as a trap.
Stingless bee keepers here in South America uses esential oil from Copaiba (Copaifera officinalis), and Andiroba (Carapa guianensis) to repell the phorid flies. I know it is a different fly, but you won´t loose anything trying. Small vinegar traps are not effective against the Houdini?
I have always stored our bee block hotel units (with the tubes on their side just like they are outside) in the garage during the summer protected by the Crown Bees bee guard bag. Never had an issue with any of the bee larvae maturing. What is the advantage of taking the tubes out of bee block or turning the bee block to be mud side up?
I'd leave the inserts in the blocks as you've done. If you had replaced filled inserts for fresh ones, obviously these would be stored in the protective BeeGuard bag. By placing the mud end up, a larva can't fall out of/away from the pollen mass and starve. - Dave
@@CrownBees Thank you. I had to replace most of my filled inserts as the Hairy Woodpecker started attacking my bee blocks and I lost some bees still in the tubes as well as a few larva. I'll store what isn't in the blocks mud side up. Now I need to figure out what type of screening to use next year when I release the bees in the spring.
I believe it's best to start the next pollinator "season" with a clean start of empty tubes/reeds. Do consider using the cocoon finder. If a summer bee uses a partially filled spring bee nesting hole, one or the other will have issues when the spring bee next year either plows out through the summer bee chambers or is blocked and dies. Great question! - Dave
If that house is facing south the painted side would be the first to receive morning sun. The right side of the tray would be shadowed by the right side of the house. You could this and flip sides. You should probably also try a few other patterns just to make sure that you didn't misinterpret what happened here. I am curious what it looks like under a UV camera though.
We find the leafy cocoons too hard to penetrate with a light. Rather, I believe that it's best to wait until the parasites do or don't show up. This is what happens commercially as well. - Dave
We had a banner year for our mason bees and I just did this last week, putting them in a layer of double netting. I left it outside though in a large plastic nursery pot next to the bee house (sits on bench) to keep it from getting wet. The past 2 years we refrigerated our tubes, but this year we had a much better colony by leaving the tubes outside since last summer and having them emerge naturally without any predator control. My question is whether any bees will be emerging from these harvested reeds in a few weeks? Do they ever have a 2nd batch of bees that emerge? I don't want them to emerge and be trapped inside the netted bag.
Letting nature take control is fine, but realize that your mason bees aren't smart and will reuse pest-filled holes in front of them. You'll see fewer bees each year as nature reduces your bees to the number it feels is best. We recommend splitting the reeds open to preclude the bees from reusing them at a minimum. You shouldn't see a second season of bees emerge unless you have two species with different emergence times in the reeds. thanks for asking! - Dave
Update! I mowed last week and the clover all have new flowers on them. I have seen 2 honey bees within the last few days, so hopefully all they wanted was new flowers. I do also supplement with perennials and annuals,
Q: Which color as a result of the experiment attracts osmium bees the most? A: Bees base their color combinations on ultraviolet light, blue, and green, which is why they can't see the color red. They can, however, see reddish wavelengths, such as yellow and orange. Each Bee Wayfinder is a unique bold color that bees can easily see.
Пчелы основывают свои цветовые комбинации на ультрафиолетовом свете, синем и зеленом, поэтому они не могут видеть красный цвет. Однако они могут видеть красноватые длины волн, такие как желтый и оранжевый. Каждый Bee Wayfinder имеет уникальный яркий цвет, который пчелы могут легко разглядеть.
Our shipping season for Mason bees is February - April. At this time, we're prepping the Leafcutter bees for shipping in Summer. For both bee seasons, you can choose when we ship them to you, based on your local weather: crownbees.com/pages/picking-a-mason-bee-ship-date.
I try and let the clover go until it has quite a few that have brown tops. But what I did notice this year, there were no honey bees! Not a one. I'm in coastal Virginia
