harvesting the cocoons October 13, 2019 Sunday

I have not done this before.   None the less, I attempted to harvest my mason bee
cocoons.
use
My bee house is divided into two types of places for cocoons

First there is the routed out wood which was supposed to be a favorite place for the
mason bees to deposit their larvae.  They completed avoided putting ANY larvae into
the routed out wood.  So much for that !

Second there is the bamboo tubes.  Approximated 60 percent of the tubes were used by
the mason bees.

In a very few cases, there were 5 or 6 cocoons.  In most cases there were only one or two cocoons.
The mason bees would seal up the tube in though the bee only put one or two larvae.
It was like someone told the bees of the concept of a Potemkin village.  If I my propose a
theory, I think the bees do this on purpose .  I think they put one larvae in a tube to throw off the parasitic wasps. 

I did find a few 6 larvae tubes.  In a very few cases, there was no nasty fungus and no nasty wasp larvae.

I harvested the cocoons. I washed them. Then I dried them off and put them in a breathable plastic
bad and put them into the bee house. I covered the bad with quarter inch hardware cloth.