Thursday, April 30, 2009

Mason Bees


I have a couple of Mason Bee houses by the patio and they are all a buzz with industrious bees making their nests in the tubes. I was busy potting up some plants when I heard a furious buzzing, a really high-pitched buzz-whine of a bee. I thought it sounded rather odd so I followed the sound back to one of the house and gingerly lifted the house off its peg, thinking that maybe a bee had gotten itself trapped somehow around the back or caught in a spiderweb (sorry spiders, you aren't allowed to eat my bees) and was trying with all its might to get out. As I was standing there, house in hand, staring dumbly at it, out flew the bee. "Ahhhgh!", I said. "Ahhhgh!", said the bee. "What are you doing messing with my house?"
It wasn't in distress, it was big, fat and shiny and very black-blue. A glorious specimen. I now wonder if the furious buzzing was coming from her fanning dry the mud-plugs by which she blocks off each egg from the other in the nesting tube.

6 comments:

  1. I was not familiar with Mason Bees, so I read up on Wikipedia. Apparently, it is too warm for them down here where I live. Great post!

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  2. I clicked on the picture to view the larger version and it is simply fantastic. Love the background too.

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  3. Oh, NICELY done, Heidi! What a great story...do you also have carpenter bees?

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  4. Love your mood-making bee protrait. I've had a bee house in the garden for years. It's made of wood drilled with lots of 1/4 inch diameter round holes drilled in it. No bees in it though! I'll keep waiting.

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  5. What a fascinating story about your mason bees! Those colors on your bee painting are wonderfully rich.

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  6. Thanks Katy! I'm sorry you don't get them, they are quite tame and only sting like a mosquito if you should accidentally provoke one.
    Thank you Sketch Gurl!
    Kate, I'm not sure if I have carpenter bees at the moment. I'll keep my eyes peeled.
    Jeanette, I jump-started my bee house by purchasing some cocoons a few years back from the local garden centre. That's all it took.
    Thanks Elizabeth! I have added some flakes of gold leaf on the legs to imitate pollen. It looks pretty groovy! :)

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