My Green Thumb Is Starting to Itch

We have had a recent burst of warm weather, that has melted all of our snow pack and got me to all fired up for spring. One of my out door projects this spring will be building raised beds for our garden so we don’t get waterlogged like last year. I have been reading a lot of gardening magazines and I came across something that struck me as very interesting.

It was an article about squash and zucchini plants that flower, then produce tiny fruit that ends up rotting on the vine. The article was claiming that it was because of a lack of pollination. As I sat there I did realize that we had a pretty big absence of bees last year. I can honestly only remember seeing a couple. The article also went on to talk about Mason Bees and what great pollinators they were. Apparently they are 20% more efficient than honey bees, and the huge plus is that they are completely non-aggressive. The males do not even have stingers and the females will only sting if squeezed, they don’t even guard their homes. After reading this I did  a quick google search for mason bee houses and it turns out that you can make a mason bee house from scrap lumber you have laying around.

So because I can’t be outside building the raised beds yet, I figured I’d throw together a mason bee house. So here is how easy it is:

A 6-7 inch chunk of Maple  I grabbed from the wood pile. ***It doesn’t have to be prisitne, it is a house for bees for pete’s sake. Also two 8 inch sections of 1x8 pine board I had laying around.

Two wood screws in the ends of the boards and voila you have a roof.

Take a 5/16” drill bit and drill random holes in the wood. Mason Bees don’t excavate their own holes, they use preexisting holes. Apparently 5/16” is the optimal size of the holes as well.

Attach the roof with a couple of long wood screws and there you have a Mason Bee house. Just take it outside and hang it on a tree.

I know it’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but I wanted it to blend in with the pines out back and that was all the scrap lumber I had. Plus,  it’s for stinking bees, it doesn’t have to be pretty.

So hopefully, this spring some Mason bees will take up residence and I’ll have a garden full of delicious vegetables. We’ll see I guess, but I wanted to pass this along in case any other gardeners out there wanted to give it shot. Good luck!