Kitchen Garden Forum

I was a little late cleaning mine out & did not replace the grotty tubes till later in March.

Though not in a prime spot, I have not seen activity round mine yet this Spring. How are the rest of your doing with yours?

Dear Colin, i haven't got a mason bee nestbox, but there are an awful lot investigating the old lime mortar bed joints in the brickwork of my house.

Apologies - my original message was supposed to say that I've not seen any bees round our 2 nests.

Anyone else got an active bunch like OH?

Hi Colin,
As I previously told you that my boxes were destroyed by Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. I rebuilt them and put them in a wire cage with the mesh too small the woodpeckers to do the same thing again. Sadly I have not seen any activity from the boxes this year.
JB.

had some activity when the sun was out, & now about 4 holes sealed off with mud. Scrounged some scrap pieces of oak, drilled some holes, seems to work this year, last year they ignored it

We have mason bees in an old barn which has clunch bricks for one of its walls. The bees were notably absent last year but are buzzing around happily again this year.
----------------
Granny

Good news Granny.

Mine have obviously gone up to yours for the Summer

Happy to say that ours have been very active over the past week or so - hatching and now filling up the tubes with new eggs.However, I need advice. We got our mason bee nest from the Oxford Bee Company three or four years ago. At the time, they sold replacement tubes, but the company subsequently went out of business. I think we should replace some of the old tubes, but with what? Something like dry cow parsley stems? Incidentally, we also had problems with a woodpeck attacking the nex, but also beat them off by blocking off the front with wire mesh.

Out walking the other day I spotted a cob wall that was populated by mason bees. It looked like it had been in a drive-by shooting. I'm guessing that maybe there were about two hundred bees which made for a very cheering sight.

ken wrote:At the time, they sold replacement tubes, but the company subsequently went out of business. I think we should replace some of the old tubes, but with what?

Do a Google and you will find several suppliers. Whilst this may not be the best place, I got my replacements from here:
http://www.birdfood.co.uk/product_detai ... prd_id=905
As you can see, if you have more than one nest, it's cheaper to get 100 rather than 20 replacement tubes.

FelixLeiter wrote:I spotted a cob wall that was populated by mason bees. I'm guessing that maybe there were about two hundred bees which made for a very cheering sight.

That's great news Felix.

Re tube suppliers, that's very helpful Colin. Many thanks, K

See this month's KG Poll.