Mar 21 Good & important news regarding mason bee condos (and poem)

I have been waiting for this day since September 2017 when I installed my first mason bee condo.  By September 2018 I saw no results. So the news I report here is most satisfying.

I checked condo-2 at 4:30 PM today(March 21,2019). One tube is entirely filled.

Below see the first fine tube, completely filled. It is on the right side of the condo. It is bamboo with a very thick wall.

Two other tubes appear to be partially filled.

But for me, the big news is I have one partially filled tube in condo-1

The bee choose the paper straw tube in the very bottom left of 

condo-1.  I see a small hole in the clay. The clay mud which I provided is on the

ground about 3 feet from the condo-1 AND it is interestingly the same color as the stuff in this tube. 

Condo-1 is mostly loaded with pencil-sized-diameter tubes. However, there are only 7

paper straws.  One of the paper straw is the one which is partially filled.

I don't know if this occurred this year or what.

Interestingly the condo-2 tube (bamboo) which is totally filled has very think

walls. Seems to be the thickest walled bamboo tube in the condo.  Don't know

if that is significant but it is interesting.

Since the first tube filled is March 21, that indicates a go-getter bee can fill

a tube in one week.  I expect several tubes should get filled by March 28, that gives

the slow bees an extra week.
I may just line the router wood with paper straws for next year. I wonder if that would work better?

I recently read that the spearmint plant will chase mason bees away.  I did have about 6 plants in my yard.  As of today, I have removed all of them.

Saga of the Mason Bee

• 
  
• The ancient mason bee, she darts, she stops, she loops then she’s quite.
• She checks carefully every hole
• In seconds she seems to know
• She sticks her head in the nest
• And in she goes
• She works.
• 
  
• She lays a wonderful egg or two every day of every seven day week
• When she leaves her nest, she explodes from the tube
• She flies straight, true like a bullet fired from a gun
• Back to the garden and the flowering plum
• In a weeks time, a tube filled
• She lives 7 weeks and dies
•    
• She rarely stings, she is fleet of wing, she is uncatchable
• If approached, she flys away, she is so stealth
• 11 months develop her eggs into larvae then pupa
• At 50 degrees,  emerge
• Many daughters choose pi day
• For over 28 million years
• 😀by John Bishop