When to mount Mason bee house? (flower, spiders, insects, spring)

[tcrackly]

I live in southern Maine and I would like to set up a Mason bee house, but I'm wondering if it's too late now in the season. Should I wait until next spring?

[dgz]

This might help: The University of Maine - Cooperative Extension Publications - Bulletin #7153, Understanding Native Bees, the Great Pollinators: Enhancing Their Habitat in Maine

I've been looking for similar information but for north Texas. :-)

[Solitarybee]

Hello tcrackly,
I would suggest that you wait for the start of spring if you want mason bees, otherwise the tunnels of the house will be filled with blocking spiders and other insects.

Why? Well if you are relatively new to the activity, cavity-nesting solitary bees (as opposed to social bees like bumblebees and honey bees) can be partly understood and defined by the materials they choose to build their nests with. This is often what's at hand the easiest to manipulate with their jaws.

So the many species grouped under the name of mason bees typically emerge and nesting spring when the soil is moist. Similarly this is the peak period for the numerous soil nesting bees (miner bees) which represent 70% or more of solitary bee species. (For info, there are over 4,000 native bee species in north America; 250 in the UK and 800 in France and 1,500 in Australia)

In the late spring/summer it's leaf-cutter bees, and in mid-to-late summer the emerging bees tend to be much smaller. Right now I have a population of resin-using bees which prefer less that 5mm diameter (< quarter of an inch) holes. As you probably also know there are Carpenter (wood chewing) bees and lesser known Wool carder bees. There are bees in Turkey that use flower petals Osmia (Ozbekosima) avoseta and bees that use empty snail shells. People also define bees by their behaviour - for example there are Sweat bees which have a preference for the salty water that comes off our bodies.

I could go on, but if you are keen to learn more, I run a FB fan page called the 'Campaign for Solitary Bees', where people discuss conservation and how to manage and raise these bees for small-holdings, gardens and farms.
Best of luck,
Paul.
P.S. One essential tip - If you plan to have your bee house in existence for more than two seasons (and to avoid it becoming a bee cemetery, you'll need to have access to the tunnels to clean out parasites and dead bees in the Autumn.

[tcrackly]

I have bee house kit with removeable tubes. Thanks for the input. I think I'll wait until spring.

[Solitarybee]

OK cool - I hope you didn't mind the long-winded reply.
There's an information deficit when people start out with their first bee house as it's easier to produce the habitats than work to fully inform the customers correctly. Concentrating your mason bees into a single place will also concentrate the parasites that kill them, thus a bee house may be counter-productive resulting in a decrease in a normally dispersed native population (where parasites have to stretch their efforts also).