How to Transition Old Nesting Material to Healthy Nesting Material and Rescue Your Baby Bees Inside

Описание: When you set out a "bee hotel" to attract mason bees, you're also attracting invasive predators. In nature they find natural holes in their environment that are camouflaged and harder for predators to find, but a bee hotel has a sign hanging on it that says "VACANCY COME ON IN"

Using the proper nesting material and fall maintenance is a key component to a healthy and thriving bee population. Pollen mites, houdini fly larva, chalkbrood and mono wasps are invasive predators that will eventually overrun your bee hotel and cause your bee tenants to perish.

Nesting material that can be opened so that cocoons can be extracted is the best kind to use. Blocks of wood with holes drilled in or bamboo reeds cannot be opened and over time will be a breeding ground for predators.

If you have old nesting material that has never been cleaned and you have holes that are plugged with mud, you have baby bees inside. In the video below we’re going to teach you how to transition your old nesting blocks to provide a healthier habitat for your mason bees and save the bees inside.

Please do your part to clean nesting blocks and cocoons EVERY year. If this is something you’re not able to commit too, then you can rent from us and we can do all of the cleaning for you.

Raising your own bees? Learn proper care and maintenance on how to clean them and store over winter. The best time to harvest and clean your cocoons and nesting blocks is in the Fall when it is still cold.    • How to Harvest, Wash & Store Your Mason Be...  

What our Fall Harvest where we clean 3 million mason bee cocoons -    • Mason Bee Fall Harvest - Watch How We Clea...  

Watch this video to see what predators look inside a nesting block -    • Identify what is inside your nesting block...  

Learn How to Care for Mason & Leafcutter Bees -    • Learn All About Mason and Leafcutter Bees,...  

If you did not harvest in the Fall and want to Change to Proper Nesting Material (Ya... thank you) and are Now Harvesting Right Before Spring, here is How to Care for the Cocoons You Save:
If you can open your nesting material, carefully remove the viable cocoons and dispose of any pollen mites or houdini fly larva that you find. You can wash them (1 cup of bleach to 20 gallons of water), but they need to be completely dried before going into cold storage, otherwise you'll have mold issues. You need to make sure bath and drying doesn't warm them up or you'll have emergence. Then, dry them in a non heated garage or shed. Can you find a window screen you can spread them out on. Then elevate and put a fan blowing under them? They should all be dry over night under a fan. Then, you can place in your refrigerator or if spring is close and temps will soon be 50, you can place them outside with your nesting block. Do not place loose cocoons outside. Get a pudding or jello box, place cocoons inside and make an emergence hole they can crawl out of.

About Rent Mason Bees:
Our program makes it easy to become a solitary bee host. Gardeners purchase a bee kit that comes with house, nesting block, clay and bees. You release solitary bees into your yard and RENT our nesting blocks for your bees. When you release the bees into your yard they will lay babies in your natural habitat and your nesting block. Harvesting and cleaning the cocoons and blocks is a critical step when hosting solitary bees to remove harmful predators. When you rent from us we take care of the maintenance and cleaning for you. You keep the black house and return the nesting blocks back to us. The following year, you will just need to reorder an “insert” with a sterilized nesting block and clean bees. Please watch our Fall Harvest Video to see how we clean them.
• Our Mason Bee Fall Harvest (why you Rent… we do all the cleaning) -    • Mason Bee Fall Harvest - Watch How We Clea...  
• Inside a Mason & Leafcutter Block (the importance of why you need to harvest and clean… remove predators)    • Predators On the Inside - What they look l...  

Mason bees need spring blooms and leafcutter bees need summer blooms. We provide a variety of options to help you become a solitary bee host. Our Mason Bee Starter kits come with a black shelter, nesting block, bag of clay and pollinator seeds. If you would like both spring and summer pollinators, our Pollinator Package comes with spring mason and summer leafcutter bees, two different nesting blocks for both bees, bag of clay for your masons and flower seeds. We send you both bees and you put out the mason block out first in spring and swap the blocks with the leafcutter block in summer. Don’t worry, we’ll notify you and teach you along the way. Here is a video we did about swapping blocks:
"HOW TO SWAP YOUR MASON BEE BLOCK WITH YOUR LEAFCUTTER BEE BLOCK" -    • When to Remove Mason Bees and Put Out Leaf...  

Here is our store link. https://rentmasonbees.com/rentals/