Snow Storm blankets city just a month before March 14

A snowstorm rages just a month before Einstein's

birthday (3.14) which is the date for mason bees

emergence.

But when spring comes, so do the blue herons. This beautiful predator will not allow a human to get very close. I film at a distance and I don't make any sudden moves. 

Sometimes there is both a male and a female. They seem to like Country Lake.  The best place to view them is at the northwest corner of the lake.  I think they like it because very few people walk in that area.

March 23 Mason Bee Update

March 23  Mason Bee Update

I will be going outside to check on temperature and mason bee activity
No rain so that makes moving around outside better for man and bee
The temperature today at noon is 54 degrees F.
No bee activity.
I noticed one of the tubes is close to being filled up. Probably, only a day or two
until it is filled.

I went out to inspect the bee condos.  I was surprised to find two bees peaking
their heads out of their nest holes.  They looked like there was some "thinking"
going on.  Typically, mason bees seem to try to escape the area if I am within 3 feet
of the condo.
I have a couple videos. In fact, I'm letting the computer download the videos
right now. Still processing.

I have been watching Dale Robertson's old western movies. I read somewhere that he could tell if a rider really knew about horses just by watching him around the horse. I notice that when Robertson mounts a horse, he first grabs the horn and basically hopes up and his
foot somehow knows exactly how to hit the stirrup.  The way he does it, looks like he is very comfortable at horseriding.

Maybe I ought to write a poem today.
I'm thinking about that.

Look on the right side of the video. You can see one tube is completely filled with clay. Then just to the left and slightly down, you can see a mason bee poking her head out of a tube. But be patient, you will see her fly away.

I have seen one bee enter the routed out wood.  Seems to be a rare occurrence
in my bee condo.  I noticed that the one bamboo tube which has filled turns out
to have a straw sized hole and the walls of the bamboo are quit thick.

March 22 Mason bee update now 8 days since the march 14 emergence

March 22 update
It has been 8 days since the March 14 start of mason bee emergence.
I'm wondering when the last two tubes will breakout.


I checked the condos and found no new completed tubes. In fact, at the time (10am)
I found no activity.

I will check later today.
-----
afternoon comments
No new completed tubes.
A few busy bees. Not big activity.
Cool weather today.  from 50 to 60 degrees F
For the first time, I saw a bee enter the routed out block.
bottom row, second from right
I will keep an eye on it
-----
by the way, only 2 of the 4 tubes in condo-1 have breakouts
I'm worried that the two remaining tubes have bad cocoons

=------

Time

Now exists for sure.

I can see it, taste it, touch it, hear it, smell it

Yesterday, I can remember it.

Tomorrow, I can anticipate it.

But my memory of yesterday may be incorrect.

My anticipation of tomorrow may be incorrect.

Only now is correct for sure.

At least it appears I can see it, taste it, touch it, hear it, smell it

by John Bishop

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

March 20, 2019 Mason Bee update with several surprises

Checked on the mason bee condos.

A new video has been posted on youtube     "wonderful bees"
Condo-2 is extremely active. Bees coming and going every minute or so.
I observed 4 or 5 bees either entering or exiting tubes simultaneously.  I was amazed.

I spent about 20 minutes watching the comings and goings of the bees.  I noticed a mix
of behaviors.  One behavior was a bee entering a tube and then quickly leaving. Sometimes they go in and leave me waiting ... they don't seem to exit.  Lastly, the go in
and spend about 1 minute.  One problem is I can't tell one bee from another and I can't
remember which tube is which.

An observance which surprised me was this: the bees are only choosing the bamboo tubes. That makes no sense.
I did not see one bee entering or leaving the routed out tubes.  I thought the routed out wood would be the best because the size seemed exactly correct. But as I watched bees choosing holes, they did not pick the same size tube.  Sometimes bees like extremely small and sometimes big and everything in between.

I observed Condo-1 and to my surprise, there was no activity.  The tubes I  purchased were broken at the end on only 2 of the 4 tubes. Maybe it is the location?
The condo-1 is located on the  SW corner of the house facing south. Something is wrong.  I rolled all the tubes in condo-1. Each tube is made of white paper liner and a cardboard outer shell. Disappointing because I spent a lot of time rolling those tubes.

I have a pot of wet clay near the SW corner of my house. I  no bee activity on the clay. Maybe they have discovered their own source?

Weather was quite warm in the 70s. No rain. Few clouds. Some wind gusts.
I noticed bee activity near the condo-2 seemed to increase with the presence of wind gusts.

 What is a mason bee in other languages

mason  bee      English

abeille maçon    French

Maurer Biene   German

пчела масон   Russian

ong thợ Vietnamese

beach beach    Irish
梅森蜜蜂 Chinese

Méisēn mìfēng Chinese simplified

When mason bees emerge ? This is Easy to remember

It just occurred to me. In the future, I will always know when the mason bees
will emerge. I only have to remember Pi day and coincidently Albert Einstein's birthday.

When the mathematicians celebrate, the mason bees emerge.

I posted two videos on  "wonderful bees"    on youtube

I posted some videos on "wonderfull bees" on youtube.

I posted some videos on "wonderfull bees" on youtube.

Fred and Gabriel have acquired a one year lease to condo-2.

To review :  the breakouts,  condo-1 now has two breakouts out of four tubes.

Condo-2 has four breakouts out of four tubes.  I did not see any bee activity around
either condo this morning. In fact, I did not observe any mason bee activity
anywhere in the yard.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred and Gabriel Hymenoptera are a beezee couple. They are from the ancient royal family of Megachilidae. Fred and Gabriel have a number of relatives in the area.

Today I saw a distant cousin buzzing around the yard. He was Yellow J. Hymenoptera. (Yellow's middle name is Jack-et).

The condo needs an address.   The address assigned by humans will not work for
Fred and Gabriel.   So their address will be:
 condo-2 B Street
 City of Megachilidae
 Country of Hymenoptera

Currently, there are no identified residents of condo-1.  But as soon as all the tubes
are cracked, I am sure we will see the new residents. They will be also offered a one year lease.

The way these leases will work, the descendants may continue the lease if the mother of the household will simply check-in to any one of the available tubes. Tubes will be assigned numbers according to a system agreed upon by the residents.

Winter daphne

I have a winter daphne shrub in the yard.  I have inspected the bush each day this spring. I have not yet observed any mason bees loitering around the bush. This
is disappointing because the flowers though small are very fragrant.

I was reading about mason bees on the web.  I discovered that some people say that
spearmint is repulsive to mason bees.  I have a lot of spearmint plants in my garden.  I am going to rip that stuff out.

Fred and Gabriel came from condo-2 (I am only sure about Gabriel)

I suspect both Fred and Gabriel (mason bees) came from condo-2.  The reason is
they were hanging around condo-2.  But I saw Gabriel actually sitting on top of
the end of the cocoon tube.
I think I will make little signs and label the bee condos as condo-1 and condo-2.

This whole project will only be successful if cocoon tubes result.  The project
includes 6 phases beginning in Spring 2019.

phase 1 purchase and mounting of bee condos in sprint 2019
phase 2 purchase and mounting of bee cocoon tubes purchases from somebody on
             the internet in spring 2019
phase 3  making sure there is wet clay in the area so the bees will have some
              clay for room separation in spring and summer 2019
phase 4  collecting the tubes in the fall and storing them in fall 2018 until spring 2020
phase 5  putting the cocoon tubes out in spring 2020
phase 6  waiting for the Ides of March 2020 to see mason bee emergences 
              If we get an emergence, we have success  !  


I hope Fred and Gabriel (&  associates) contribute to the successful completion
of this project.

March 18 Update on bee condos with one AWESOME BEE

I checked the bee condos today at about 11:30 am
One awesome bee (see below for VIDEO) was sitting on the front of condo-2. Judging from the size
it was a female. I got a good photo and will try to publish it today.
Condo-1 has a second broken tube but I did not observe any bees loitering around the
condo-1.

The mason bee observed sitting on the front of condo-2 kept still for about 10 minutes.
It was the first time I had such a good look at a mason bee. Usually, they are so skittish that they fly away after only about 30 seconds, at most.
I called the first bee out of condo-2 by the name Fred (random type name).
The random I will give to the new awesome female is Gabriel.

Temperature is measured at 64 ⁰ F at noon today. According to the weather forecast,
the temperature my reach 69 ⁰ F.
Observing these little rascals, I can see why some people say they look like
flys. Well they do not have the body shape of flys, they do have the skittish
way of flying. I think that is partly why they don't need the stinger equipment.
No bird can catch them.
Here is the mud bucket. Basically, it is kitty litter with a reasonable amount of water.
It is just like clay so I hope it will work. The only problem may be, it does seem to
dry out rather quickly. I will need to freshen the water nearly every day.

For those interested I am using a Canon HDT-cx405.

List of common names for Miner and Mason bees (including link to complete list)

Miner Bees

Andrena, commonly called the mining bee or miner bee, is the largest genus in the family Andrenidae but we always have to assume that some species are yet to be discovered...happy hunting!

wikipedia has a great deal of material but I have tried to show a direct relationship from the official scientific binomial nomenclature and the common names. Sometimes people get confused on which is which.
Below is an extremely incomplete list in alphabetic order

 According to Wikipedia, the genus includes over 1,300 species

(complete list of the mining bees      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Andrena_species)

Andrena carantonica   'Chocolate Mining Bee'

Andrena fulva,              ’tawny mining bee’

Andrena marginata,      ‘small scabious mining bee’

Andrena lauracea          a rare bee species with no current common name

================================================================================
Mason Bees

Osmia, commonly called the mason bee. Includes over 300 species

(complete list of the mason bees  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Osmia_species)

Below is an incomplete list in alphabetic order

Osmia atriventris       Main blueberry bee

Osmia avosetta         a rare bee, it covers cocoon with flower petals and mud

Osmia bicolor            red-tailed mason bee, nests in empty snail shells but has no common name

Osmia bicornis          red mason bee

Osmia caerulescens blue mason bee

Osmia californica      California mason bee

Osmia cornifrons       hornfaced mason bee

Osmia cornuta           European orchard bee

Osmia inermis            mountain mason bee

Osmia latreillei          this bee no common name

Osmia lignaria           orchard mason bee or blue orchard bee

Osmia ribifloris          blueberry bee

Osmia uncinata         pinewood mason bee,

Osmia xanthomelana   large mason bee
of course, this is not an endorsement about any website or anything else :)

set of photos and videos------from March 17

Here are some photos and videos

Mason-bee condo update photos to be posted later today ! MARCH 17

Update on my mason-bee condos.

Condo-2 's 4 tubes all have breakouts.  Two of the breakouts are quite
small, probably due to the first breakouts are all male and males are small.

Once again, I checked condo-1 and has a breakout today. I got a video of
a newly emerged bee just after he emerged. He was sitting on the end of the tube.
Temperature is over 50⁰ F up to 60⁰ F

No bees on the walls.
I did see not even one male hanging around the daffodils.

The flowering plum is flowering today. Looks like less than about 5% of the
buds have blossomed.  I saw no bees on the plum.
Took some photos and videos to be posted later.
These bees are very shy of photos. They tend to be quite skittish.