A small dark wooden bee house on a post beside a plastered wall, one shelf filled with perforated clay blocks and the other with a tight bundle of hollow reed tubes

01

What keeping mason bees involves

A few busy weeks, then a long wait

A mason bee season is short and mostly hands-off. Males emerge first and hover at the house for a few days until the females come out. After mating, each female works alone: she carries pollen on her belly instead of in neat leg baskets, which is why she dusts every flower she lands on, and she fills one or two tubes with five or six eggs apiece. She ranges only about 300 feet from the nest, so the bees you raise work your own yard and your nearest neighbors'. By early summer the adults are gone and the next generation is growing inside the sealed tubes, where it stays until you open them in fall.

Tubes per female: One or two
Eggs per tube: Five or six
Range from the nest: About 300 feet

02

How to get started

Tick these off as the year goes

A fuzzy tan-brown wild bee feeding on an open white apple blossom among pink unopened buds — Blossom opening: time to set cocoons out

The fall harvest, step by step

Crown Bees: how to harvest mason bee cocoons Free photo walkthrough of the fall harvest and what each pest looks like

03

Which bees to raise

Open one to see where to start. The leafcutter card can add its tubes to the kit.

Spring mason beesThe standard start and what the base kit is for. They fly in cool weather for about six weeks, which makes them the bee for apples, cherries, pears, plums and blueberries.

Start here

Order 20 or so cocoons in winter from a supplier that raises bees in your part of the country, and pick a ship date about two weeks before your fruit trees usually bloom.

Crown Bees mason bee guide

Summer Leafcutter BeesA second season in the same house. They need days near 75°F, nest in narrower 1/4 inch (6 mm) holes, and seal their cells with cut circles of leaf instead of mud. They suit vegetable gardens, melons and summer flowers.

Start here

When the mason bees stop flying in early summer, pull their filled tubes out of the house and slide in the narrower leafcutter tubes. Set the leafcutter cocoons out once daytime highs hold near 75°F.

Crown Bees leafcutter bee guide

Wild native beesLocal mason bees and other solitary bees move into spare tubes on their own. They cost nothing and are already adapted to your area, though it can take a season or two before any find the house.

Start here

Load about a third more tubes than you have cocoons and leave the extras empty. A mud cap on a tube you did not expect to fill means a wild bee has moved in.

04

Choosing a bee house and nesting tubes

You must be able to open every hole.

Paper tubes you unroll, natural reeds you split, or wood trays that come apart let you harvest cocoons and remove pests each fall. Bamboo canes and solid drilled blocks cannot be opened, so mites and disease build up year after year.

Check the hole size and depth.

Mason bees want 5/16 inch (8 mm) holes about 6 inches deep. Shorter holes produce mostly male bees, and a house with mixed decorative hole sizes wastes most of its space.

Look for a closed back and a deep roof.

Tubes need to be sealed at the back and sheltered from rain. A house only as deep as its tubes leaves them wet.

Start each spring with fresh tubes.

Paper tubes and reeds are single-use, because a used one carries mites into the next generation.

Start small.

One house with 20 to 40 holes is plenty for a first year. Crowding hundreds of holes in one spot invites parasites.

Close-up of the front of a bee house: dozens of hollow tube ends around two drilled log rounds, several holes plugged with pale mud caps — Capped ends mean a tube is full

05

How much time it takes

Plan on about an hour in late winter to clean the house and load tubes, a five-minute look each week while the bees fly, and ten minutes to bag the filled tubes in early summer. The fall harvest is the one long session: about an hour for a small house. Over winter the only job is adding a little water to the humidity container once a month. The bagged tubes stay somewhere warm and shaded all summer because the larvae need that heat to develop, so nothing goes in the refrigerator before the harvest.

Late winter: About an hour
Bee season: Five minutes a week
Early summer: Ten minutes
Fall harvest: About an hour
Winter: Water once a month

06

Stings, pests and buying bees responsibly

Stings are rare and mild.

Males have no stinger, and a female stings only if she is squeezed or trapped in clothing. There is no hive to defend, so you can stand a foot from the house. Anyone with a known bee sting allergy should still be careful when handling cocoons and tubes.

Buy bees from your own region.

The blue orchard bee has distinct eastern and western populations, and cocoons shipped across the country emerge at the wrong time and can carry disease to local bees. Ask the seller where the bees were raised.

Know the three pests.

Pollen mites look like loose yellow-orange dust in a cell. Chalkbrood shows as hard gray or black larvae. Tiny parasitic wasps drill into tubes left outside in summer. Fall harvest removes the first two, and the mesh bag stops the third.

Keep sprays away.

Do not apply insecticide to anything in bloom near the house, and ask before a neighbor or lawn service does.

Macro of a fuzzy pale-faced bee peering head first out of a round nesting hole in weathered wood — One bee, one hole, nothing to defend

07

What trips beginners up

Bees that leave.

Some females fly off to nest elsewhere. A house in morning sun, mud close by and flowers already open when the cocoons go out keep most of them home.

Releasing too early or too late.

Cocoons set out before anything blooms starve. Cocoons held in the refrigerator past late spring run out of stored fat.

No usable mud.

Sandy or bagged potting soil will not hold together. If the bees cannot find clay, they will not nest.

Skipping the fall harvest.

Leaving filled tubes in the house over winter is the usual reason a thriving first year collapses in the second.

A dry refrigerator.

Frost-free refrigerators pull moisture out of cocoons. Stored loose in a paper bag, many will not survive to spring.

Expecting honey or a crowd.

Twenty cocoons produce a few busy weeks and, in a good year, two or three times as many cocoons. That is success.

08

Where to learn more

University extension services publish the most reliable free guides, and the Oregon State one covers the whole year in a few pages. The blue orchard bee handbook from SARE goes deeper on nesting materials, parasites and orchard use. Cocoon suppliers send email reminders timed to your region, which is a simple way to keep the seasonal tasks from slipping. Local master gardener programs and native plant societies often run fall cocoon cleaning workshops where you can see the pests in person.

Free guides worth opening

09

How the kit is put together

The essentials are the bees, a house and the right size tubes. The recommended lines cover the two points where beginners lose bees, summer parasites (the mesh bag) and winter drying (the humidity container), plus clay for yards without it. Only the tubes are a repeat purchase. The leafcutter tubes sit behind their own switch because they are a second season you can add any year. Bees ship live from specialist suppliers in season, so that line carries no product link.

A small dark bee with a rusty-orange abdomen in flight toward the front of a plain wooden nest box with an overhanging roof — Flying in under the roof overhang

10

Fill the bee house

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cart. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out. The first line, the bees themselves, is not sold on Amazon: cocoons ship live from a specialist supplier.

Mason bee cocoons

essential · The bees

A new house can sit empty for a season or two waiting for wild bees. A starter batch of cocoons puts nesting females in it the first spring.

Not sold on Amazon · order from a bee supplier

Not sold on Amazon. Order in winter from a specialist bee supplier that raises cocoons in your region (ask if it is not stated) and ships them chilled for a spring date you choose. About 20 cocoons, a mix of males and females, runs $25 to $45. The same suppliers ship leafcutter cocoons in early summer for a similar price, already warmed and close to emerging.

Mason bee house

essential · Housing

The house keeps the nesting tubes dry, shaded from afternoon heat and fixed in one place, which is what a female looks for before she commits to a nest.

budget

WHITEHORSE Premium Cedar Bee House - 6” Long Replaceable Tubes - Perfect for Mason Beekeeping - an Insect Hotel Built to Last - Support Bees While Pollinating Your Garden (Paper Tubes Included)

4.6(158)

$34.95

Mason Bee Keeping

What keeping mason bees involves

How to get started

Which bees to raise

Choosing a bee house and nesting tubes

How much time it takes

Stings, pests and buying bees responsibly

What trips beginners up

Where to learn more

How the kit is put together

Fill the bee house

Mason bee cocoons

Mason bee house

8 mm mason bee nesting tubes

Clay mud mix

Fine mesh bag for filled tubes

Cocoon humidity container

6 mm leafcutter bee nesting tubes

Mason bee attractant spray

Pollinator wildflower seed mix