May 18 bumble bees plentiful

Today in applied a two layer piece of aluminum foil on the west side of
condo#2.   This will reflect the setting sun so that the temperature will not get
excessive.

The bumble bees in this region seem plentiful this year.

I saw one bee working on her tube today.

protecting the cocoons

Some mason bee keepers use hardware cloth to protect the cocoon nests from raiding birds.
I plan to fit some hardware cloth over the front of the condo #2.

My new chromebook

I  just got an Asus Chromebook.  It works pretty well.  My old hp Chromebook became a problem and since it was 5 years old and it was low cost, it wasn't worth fixing it.   New Asus has a touch screen
and the speed seems good.   According to specs, I am supposed to get 10 hours worth of battery.
Ten hours is good because I hate being connected to an ac line.  I only had to pay $300 so it was
an easy decision. 

I have a  video camera (Canon) but I usually use my smartphone.  I take photos then email the photos to myself.

Then I go to my email and save the photo to Chromebook.  Then I go to blogger and load the photo
to this blog.  It is pretty quick and the photos are good from my smartphone.

Tillandsia recurvata from Austin, Texas

I took some black bamboo and cut various lengths. Then I tied the tubes together with a piece
of wire.  I purchased a drinking glass at a dollar store and inserted pups from Tillandsia recurvata (this is the correct spelling for the ¨small ball moss¨ )  into the ends of the bamboo.  I put water in the bottom of the glass.

I capped the glass with a piece of plastic.  I may try small glass vases, that seems like an attractive place for Tillandsia. (On May 18, I removed the plastic from the glass. Many people on web say you should not totally close the ¨terrerium¨.

We will see how this works.    If this does well, I will return to the dollar store and buy more
glasses. (My black bamboo is the type which does not run. It grows very slowly. I have two clums (clum is the name for a group of bamboo stalks)  and each only produces 3 to 5 new shoots twice per year.  Still, it is enough for most of my uses.)


Also, I have mounted pups all over my yard. Several are tucked in the bark of some trees and some
are fitted into gaps in my fence.  We will see how the pups develop.

A friend of mine lives in Texas, I saw the Tillandsia laying in balls the size of tennis balls.  He told me it is a nuisance which grows in the trees and falls to the ground whenever there is rain or
wind.  He didn't know what it was and I told him.   He was happy to have me collect some.  Next time I visit him I will load up a large box and mail it to myself.

 think I will take a photo that does not have the Venetian blind in the background.

Most people go on a trip and during the trip, they purchase a souvenir.  I also like souvenirs but I like to collect some local plant and make my own totally unique souvenir.  Nobody has anything like my black bamboo mini-terrarium with Tillandsia recurvata.  For me, it is my Austin, Texas souvenir.

May 16 Three photos including the poor dead mason bee (RIP)

I added a few paper tubes to the condo to see if accepted 

so sad, a mason bee died on the ledge of the bee condo #2. Must have run out of the life cycle. Some estimates say end of the cycle is the end of May, so this is close

notice how full the right side of the condo #2 is.   very few tubes are unfilled on this date

Some of the tubes are fairly large diameter.

Notice the extra tubes (made from white paper). So far,  the bees have avoided any of the white paper tubes.

Yesterday I became impatient with two of the mason bee tubes I purchased online.

One of the tubes contained a LIVE male bee (very small bee). All the rest of the cocoons were dead.

I examined the other tube and found one live female.  She looked in good health.

Let me pause to count my chickens before they hatch.

I  have about 60 tubes.  If each tube contains 10 females.  Then if all cocoons emerge on the Ides of March next year, then I will get approximately 600 bees.    I had better have lots of tubes ready for next year.   Now adding some realism, I will say only 300 bees will survive to hatch on Pi day.

Each bee will need 10 tubes , so I will need to produce 3,000 tubes. I think I  will provide some bamboo tubes.  I don't have confidence in the routed wood.  There was something wrong with the scent on the wood...my guess.   Maybe I will wash the routed-wood. Maybe that will help.

H ___ E ___L___ P what species of bumble bee is this?

oo

which species of the bumblebee is this?   I have many of these during this time of mid-May
I took this photo today.   I have a lot of bumble bees just like this one. I also have bees with
yellow bars and no yellow.
I am no expert on bumblebees.  The literature says the rusty patch has a range which includes the eastern United States.
I am not saying that this is a rusty patch but it sure does resemble one. 

Another possible rusty patch..   This is state of Washington, so I think it is unlikely unless the range for rusty patch is far larger than Easter United States.  See below

May 15

Here I stuck some tillandsia in the bark of a tree. This tillandsia plant has two significant
characteristics

1.  It only uses a plant as a substrate. It gives nothing and takes nothing away from the
host plant.  It is not a parasite

2.  If tillandsia is left on the tree, the first freeze will kill it, so it can never be an invasive
species.

I will remove it shortly before the first freeze.  I am thinking it will increase in size. Just an experiment

May 14

Checked out the bee houses today.

Left side bamboo tubes have 24 tubes completely filled.
Right side bamboo tubes have 36 tubes completely filled.

I suspect there is a slight difference in temperature so that
the right side is very slightly cooler. ( so the left side faces west and
the front faces south.)

After 2 months of activity, there is not a single routed-wood tube filled.
While the routed tubes are recommended by many mason-bee authorities,
the bees simply avoid the routed-wood tubes.  I have seen bees hover
in front of routed-wood tubes, but they clearly reject the idea of using the
routed-wood.

Just below condo #2  is condo #1. Condo #1 uses paper tubes. No paper tubes
were used.  Also, the paper tubes were on the large side of the diameter.

As I have said in previous posts, I will be using smaller diameter dowels to
roll tubes for next year.

Today the temperatures were in the mid-50s and rain was on and off all day.

May 13

I would like to identify this bee. Obviously, it is a bumble bee, but what is the species?

The above photo from condo2 shows bamboo tubes on the right side of the condo are loaded with complete mason bee nests.  Notice the white paper straws.  No bee of any kind showed the straws were useful.

lk

 photo of condo #1, showing my hand made paper tubes. The bees looked over my work and decided my amateur craft was worthless.   Not a single bee thought these tubes were worth using as cocoon depository locations. NOT ONE

There continue to be some mason bee activity, however, nearly all the tubes are filled
and I only saw one bee flying around the bee condo #2.

I broke up some of my recently acquired tillandsias and "planted" the sprigs on my
north fence. We will see if it increases in size over the next few weeks.

May 12 A video viewing the Condo #2 and then condo #1

I checked by bee houses.
Bee condo #1 was a total failure, not a single filled tube.
Condo #2   Had two types of cocoon tubes. The routed wood contained
nothing.  But the bamboo tubes contained about 80% of the tubes totally
filled.
According to some websites, I will need to wait until October to extract the
cocoons from the tubes.  So, I will wait.
I am not sure of the best place to keep the tubes until October.  I think I will
package them up in a cardboard box and tuck them away in a closet.

I plan to make paper tubes for next year.  I need to buy some dowels of various
sizes.  According to several websites, I will need to use parchment paper.  The failed
tubes are made out of computer printer paper. I don't know why but it sure did
fail. 

condo 2  left and middle areas

view of the routed wood block(notice   not a single bee chose to nest here)