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April 27, 2008 · 13 Comments

Condo for Bees Open

How to

Unlike so many condos for people, I am hoping my just completed condo project for orchard mason bees will soon be abuzz with activity. I’ve been meaning to build one of these since I read an article in Fine Gardening about raising raspberries and the importance of orchard mason bees as pollinators.

bee condo with bees

Leaf cutter bees are inhabiting the condo.

Last fall, we had an article in Northern Gardener on the honeybee crisis. Honeybees, which are responsible for much of the pollination of commercial crops such as almonds, have been dying off in large numbers. Marla Spivak of the U of M is a bee expert, and she believes several factors may be causing the die-off, including mites or diseases and changes in habitat, such as prairies becoming residential areas and large monoculture crops (corn). If you are interested in honeybees or just want to see pictures of people with bee-beards, please check out the U’s great Bee Lab web site.

Well, no matter what the situation with honeybees, gardeners need bees of all types for pollination. Orchard mason bees are perfect bee neighbors. They are not social bees–each little bee wants her own condo. They are very gentle and pollinate like crazy. To build the house, you need a block of wood deeper than 4 inches (see comment below) of any length (mine is about a foot) with an angle cut on one edge. You also need a spare piece of wood or a cedar shingle for the roof, and another piece of wood to mount the house on. If you are lucky and have a friend with lots of spare lumber and a rotating arm power saw, the job is a snap. (Thanks, Steve!)

Once you have the wood, you drill holes 5/16th of an inch in diameter about 3 inches into the wood. Drill as many holes as you want, but there should be about 3/4 of an inch center to center between the holes. I got 28 on my block. Then, attach the roof to the block, and the block to the mounting piece and you are ready to hang your bee house. The bees like it facing south, so I mounted mine on one of the posts of my pergola. The bees use the holes in the house for nesting. They love pollen from apples and raspberries and I have both very close to the bee house. With any luck, the bees will help produce a good crop of raspberries, apples, veggies, flowers, and more bees this summer.

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Comments

  1. Susan Mix says

    May 19, 2008 at 10:07 am

    Wow, thanks for the instructions.

  2. buzzybeegirl says

    August 9, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    Thanks for getting the word out. I just blogged about building a bee condo. I hope people try it. It’s lots of fun!

  3. Steve Edwards says

    July 21, 2009 at 1:58 pm

    It’s important that your block of wood is actually DEEPER than 4″ (thus a 4×4 won’t work) because you’ll only raise male bees in the shallower sections of a bee block. The females require holes in excess of 4″ !!

  4. mynortherngarden says

    July 21, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    Thanks for the comment, Steve. I did not know the female bees required more depth.

Trackbacks

  1. More info on Bee Condos « Anna’s Bee World says:
    August 9, 2008 at 4:08 pm

    […] More info on Bee Condos I found this other post which was also dedicated to building a bee condo. The author also has links to gardening articles regarding mason bee nests. Check out the site My Northern Garden. […]

  2. Bee Condo, Year 2: Return of the Leafcutters « My Northern Garden says:
    July 3, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    […] 3, 2009 by mynortherngarden I had been lamenting that the bee condo I built last year would go unoccupied this year, but I was surprised yesterday to discover that a […]

  3. My Northern Garden » Blog Archive » The Bees are Back says:
    August 4, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    […] built this simple bee house in the summer of 2008, and it has consistently attracted insects – despite an attack from a […]

  4. New Guide to Protecting Pollinators | My Northern Garden says:
    February 9, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    […] for a sequence of blooms from early spring through fall. Try to provide habitat as well, such as a bee house or nesting sites for ground nesting bees.  Don’t be too obsessive about keeping your garden […]

  5. Gardening for Birds (and Bees and Everything Else) - Notes from Northern Gardener says:
    February 18, 2013 at 7:15 am

    […] them some room. Place bird houses, orchard mason bee houses, hollow logs and other potential nest sites in places you can see but that are not too close to […]

  6. Planting for Pollinators says:
    February 18, 2014 at 5:40 am

    […] valuable pollinators. For a project that will introduce children to pollinators, consider building a house for mason bees. It’s fun to see which bees move in and how they build their nests in the house. Remember, […]

  7. Pollinator Friendly Gardens, Part 1Notes from Northern Gardener says:
    April 25, 2014 at 2:14 pm

    […] A bee house. You can make a bee house for orchard mason bees and other native bees, but the houses should be cleaned out each year. […]

  8. Book Review: Attracting Native Pollinators says:
    October 5, 2018 at 3:55 pm

    […] for a sequence of blooms from early spring through fall. Try to provide habitat as well, such as a bee house or nesting sites for ground nesting bees.  Don’t be too obsessive about keeping your garden […]

  9. How to Build a Bee House - Minnesota State Horticultural Society says:
    February 16, 2022 at 10:56 am

    […] you can build a bee house using a thick block of wood with holes drilled into it (that’s what my first bee house looked like) those tend to get dirty and possibly diseased over […]

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