You may be thinking - “How do mason bees have anything to do with birds?” “Or perhaps like me, “What on earth are mason bees?” I vaguely remember hearing that name, but can’t think of when or why.
But, recently as I looked through an Australian Gardening magazine that I found on my library “Libby” app, I saw something interesting hanging on a Shepherd’s hook in someone’s garden. As I zoomed in to see more closely I saw that it was a bee hotel - more specifically - a mason bee hotel.
The caption briefly said that by drawing Mason bees to your yard and garden that they would greatly enhance flower blooms and an increase in your vegetable output. The reason was because they were great pollinators!
As I read more about mason bees I discovered that they are 120 times more effective as pollinators than Honey Bees or Bumble Bees. This makes them very desirable. If you look at photos of them on the web the Mason Bee looks as though it fell in a bucket of pollen! They pollinate 95% of the flowers that they land on according to Feed the Bees’ Facebook page. But they work hand in hand with honeybees to increase pollination. As many of you are aware - if we didn’t have bees then humans would soon starve to death.
Mason bees increase pollination more than Honey Bees for several reasons. The main reason is that they do not live in a hive. Honey Bees are social bees that gather pollen to take back to their hive to make honey for their colony to survive on. But, mason bees are solitary bees that don’t support a queen bee. They lay their own eggs and the pollen that they gather is for themselves.
Mason bees are non-aggressive and will rarely sting. Since I am in the yard a lot and also have my grandchildren and pets to consider, that is very important to me. I want to invite them to come to my yard, but “stinging” insects are not welcome at my home. Teaching my grands about Mason Bees is one of my projects for this summer.
Mason bees do not have hives, so you might ask - “Where do they live?” They live in tunnels and holes that have been bored into trees by wood-boring beetles and in plant stems that are pithy. Or even a man-made tunnel such as the bee hotel that was on the Shepherd’s hook in the magazine that I viewed.
So how do bees benefit birds? Bees benefit birds by pollinating flowers that produce seeds such as sunflowers, berries and even fruit trees that birds love to eat. Without bees spreading pollen from flower to flower and tree to tree, the birds would soon be just like humans without bees. They would starve and become extinct. Bees help sustain a healthy environment.
Since I began feeding birds in my yard I have seen the number of birds increase year after year that come to my yard. This spring the numbers have been unreal! Unless the feeders have emptied and all the water in my birdbath has been splashed out, I can have hundreds of birds in my backyard at any given moment!
So, if we all begin to house mason bees and plant native flowers, shrubs, and trees that feed them, we can begin to see a turn around in their numbers. Save The Bees website says native mason bees are having a steady decline in their numbers due to habitat loss and pesticides.
Ever since I read Matthew 6:26 - “Look at the birds of the air....” I have found myself growing in wisdom and knowledge about all the creatures that make up our environment. When God made the earth He stopped and looked at what He had created. I know that His heart must have beamed with its beauty! I must do all I can to preserve it and I hope you will, too.
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My Blog: http://www.birdieofmississippi.blogspot.com
