April Fools day dont fall for stupid pranks

 Judging from the number of broken-open cocoons, there are many free mason bees out in the area.  However, I do not see more than one or two

flying around the condos.  It certainly may be possible that the bees have found nesting sites which they are using elsewhere in the neighborhood.

Google the following

mason bees species in king county

March 30. 2021 Bees are active now.

Mason bees are active now.  I viewed both condos and in both cases bees were humming around the tubes.

No tubes have been filled yet. 

Houdini flys Photograph of white maggots

This is the bamboo tube during the October harvest process.

 I open each tube and destroy all the white maggots which will turn into Houdini flies if allowed to develop

When I harvested the cocoons in October, I made sure I killed all the Houdini fly larvae.  I hope to see fewer flies this year.  I intend to use a portable vacuum to clean them off the condos.

It actually takes about 2 hours to break out all the bamboo and paper tubes. The process is necessary to make sure all parasites are destroyed. 

March 29, 2021

 Very cool weather continues.  Both condos #1 & #2 had bees swarming around. I checked the cocoon cache and found many  bees had emerged.

I have 3 large Winter Daphne bushes. They are covered in fragrant white flowers.  A large number of daffodil flowers are also blooming. A few dozen hyacinth flowers are blooming.  All the flowers must be contributing to the mason bees source of pollen and nectar.

Tulips, blueberries and pear trees have not yet begun to bloom, so they have not contributed to the mason bees pollen.

Mason Bee Revolution: How the Hardest Working Bee Can Save the World - One Backyard at a Time Paperback – March 22, 2016  It costs about $17 (plus tax and shipping) and can be purchased at amazon.com

Photo of a mason bee. This one was investigating 

a routed-wood-tray, she never used it

Heleborus, 

always flower starting in February

Winter Daphne: very fragrant flowers. 

You can smell the flowers from 40 feet.

March 28, 2021 Bees are going into the tubes. This blog may be one of the least viewed blog on the entire internet.

 For some reason the Mason Bees are active at Condo #2. I would say there were 4 tubes active. However, there is no activity on Condo #1.

So far I have only seen bees occupying paper tubes. No activity has yet been seen for the bamboo tubes.

Lots of rain today.  Temperature about 45 degrees F.  So it is not surprising I see no activity this afternoon.

All day it rained. Chance for little activity.  Although the temperature was 45, it felt even colder.

😊