Mason and Leafcutter bees are solitary and prolific pollinators for your garden. They don’t wander too far away and come out at different times of the growing season. Mason bees come out in the spring to help pollinate your fruit trees and berry plants. Leafcutter bees wait until summer and love to help pollinate your vegetable and flowerbeds. Both of these types of bees are hard workers and fun to have around. Neither species makes honey or beeswax; and their main purpose in our gardens is to pollinate!
Gardeners love these little critters because, in addition to being amazingly effective pollinators that don’t travel far from home, they also don’t defend their nests like other bees and rarely, if ever, sting. If stepped on or squeezed, leafcutters tend to bite before stinging, and male mason bees don’t even have stingers. Female mason bees rarely sting and generally only if severely disturbed or stepped on. In either instance of a bite or sting, these little guys don’t pack much of a punch in any event. Because they’re solitary by nature, they’re not associated with swarming like some other bee species.
Raising your own mason and leafcutter bees can be fun and help make you an even more successful gardener! For more information about these wonderful friends of your garden, we think the Honey Bee Conservancy site is a good place to start, but you can find many great sources with just a few clicks in any Search Engine.
If you’d like to read more about these helpful friends of your garden, we think you’d enjoy reading Mason Bee Revolution: How the Hardest Working Bee Can Save the world One Backyard at a Time, by Dave Hunter and Jill Lightner. The book is widely available through your library or at local and on-line book sellers.
Once you’ve decided to add these little friends to your gardens, we’re ready to support you! We’re now offering large or small Mason/Leafcutter bee houses (made of cedar, naturally). Our hand crafted bee houses also come with detachable wire mesh front panels to help keep hungry birds away from your nesting bees. Our bee houses are pre-assembled and ready to hang. You just need to add the nesting environment you want and the bee cocoons!
Happy gardening!
darci & Don