Matilda the mason bee March 3----count down to Pi day ... 11

 I was sorting though the cocoons (very gently) when I came across a cocoon which looked a bit shriveled. I thought I would peel off the shell a inspect.

So I carefully peeled off the shell. Soon I discovered that the contents did appear to be an insect. So (thinking it was some sort of parasite) I peeled off the entire shell. Lo and behold a mason bee emerged.

I gave the bee the name Matilda because the bee was large which is a main characteristic of a female. I photographed her but she was a bit camera shy and she flew away (a good sign she is healthy). Basically, as soon as she was completely recovered from her ordeal of emerging from the cocoon, she took to the air.  The photo shown is the best of the three photos which she "sat for" . Note that Matilda is not the bee in the video of the previous post.  The name of the mason bee in the video is Bertha.

Upon inspecting the south wall of the house where condo 2 is mounted, I saw her on the window frame.

I observed two other bees which were quite small. Both were sitting high up on the wall, so I could not be sure they were mason bees. If they were mason bees, they would be males. I am giving the males the names Alex and George(family names). Of course, I couldn't tell you which is which.

March 03 , 2021 NEWS 1st egg laying 1st TODAY see video

1st egg laying  

Today just after noon, I was observing Condo 2 which is on the south wall of the house.  On the tenth row of tubes from the bottom on the right hand side of the condo I noticed the very first activity of the season.

Please see video which is included in this post. Incidentally, I examined the cocoon cache and noticed one broken open cocoon.  I also noticed three shriveled cocoons (which indicates a parasite), I opened the shriveled cocoons and discovered nasty larvae of some nasty parasite. I smashed them with a rock.

See attached video of Seasons First Female laying eggs.

March 02, 2021 count down to Pi day 12 days until 3.14

 According to weather forecasts every day from now on will be a high of at least 50 F.  I will accept the forecast and say by March 6 which should be seeing bees.

I will try to take photos of the first mason bees.

Stay tuned.

March 1, 2021 count down to Pi day 13 days until 3.14

 I checked the cocoons and found not a single cocoon has emerged.  And the tubes are all empty.  I will be keeping an eye on the tubes.

Temperature seems to hover just under 50 during mid day.

The mid day temperatures should be slightly over 50 for a few days to encourage the bees to emerge.

Feb 25, 2021

 No tubes active yet.  I checked the cocoon bad and no

cocoons have been broken.  I keep the cocoons in a bag

which allows air flow. So far, the cocoons look like they are in good shape.

February 15, 2021

 The bees are non existant. Maybe we will see some in a couple months.

feb 4 2021

 It is way too cold for bees.  If we see a few days over 49 degrees , we might see a bee or two.  But with February weather, no bees.

February 4, 2021

 February 4, 2021

   No bees yet.  Not that I expect any, but there is always a possibility of a strange occurrence.

I removed the bag of cocoons from the north side of the shed. I positioned them so escape is extremely easy, yet totally protected from rain. 

If none of the cocoons survive I will, of course, be disappointed. The condos will then need to be populated by natural populations. This is possible.  I will keep an eye on the cocoons and see if an emergence occurs.

A cool day on January 31, 2021

 But no bees.

jan 27, 2021

 No bees yet.

Jan 25, 2021

No bees yet.  I am keeping my eye on the condos.

I plan to photograph the first emergence.

 This one is just a freebie from a web site.

I used crayola white pottery clay to plug the ends of paper tubes. I plan to buy a large amount to provide females with clay for the cocoons.

Jan 24, 2021 No bees yet.

 No bees yet. I am checking the condos every day. While I realize the bees usually do not show up until late February, I am just checking to be sure.

The white tubes are rolled paper. The other tubes are cut from black bamboo.  Each tube is from 4 to 5 inches long. All tubes are blocked at the inner end.

The roofs of the bee condos are 1/8 inch styrofoam.

Condo north has a few tubes which are loosely tossed into the upper room (three vertical lines at top of condo)

condo north

condo south

Jan 18, 2021

 Predictably, no mason bees active today.

Flowers in bloom, no bees yet

 Ok, so the total number of flowers in my yard, front and back are as follows:

 Winter daphne (Only buds, no flowers)

 Prim rose     (a few flowers blooming)

 Heleoburus    (a few flowers blooming)

 Camellia japonica  (full bloom)

 Blueberries   (buds, no flowers)

 Asian pears   (buds, no flowers)

The winter daphne are really only buds which are not in full bloom. It looks like all four plants will be full bloom in a two weeks.

I cannot imagine the bees arriving until mid March, but

who knows?

no action today but I do have flowers , so I am watching for action including the Christmas Rose Helleborus niger

 Of course, the mason bees were not active today.
Not surprising because there are not any flowers out.
The winter flower Helleborus is almost in bloom.  The Camilla japonica
has been in full bloom for a couple weeks.  So I suppose if any mason bees are flying around wild, then my condos are available for them. We will see.  I will try to photograph any bees which show up. 

Christmas Rose Helleborus niger is quite a flower. The plant does not waste time with leaves at this time of year.Most of the plant is just flowers. I have never witnessed a bee actually visiting the flower but it sure is an early flower and just maybe I will catch a glimpse of one this January or February.

Note

Niger is actually referred to the color of the roots, not the white or pink flowers

Jan 13, 2021 All tubes completed and installed. Both mason bee condos are well seated on the house walls.

 This year I loaded the condos with quite a few more tubes due to my better packing technique.  Each tube is touched with silicone caulking to keep it in place. Each condo has a large overhanging roof. The roof material is styrofoam.

I ash-canned all the routed wood trays. I have used the routed wood trays for two years and I never got even one cocoon. The idea of the routed wood tray sounds great and might work for some people. But my bees tell me that they will look elsewhere for breeding accommodations.

The routed wood trays take up a huge amount of condo space. I would never use them again, not even if I acquired them as a gift.

I have become quite skilled at rolling white paper tubes. At 2 per minute, it only took a few sessions to produce enough to fill the condos. About a third of the space has been used by black bamboo tubes. Trimming the bamboo tubes does require a little more skill. The base of the bamboo can be no larger than the rest of the tube.  I found a few extra large bamboo tubes so I installed white paper tubes into the bamboo.  Should be interesting to see how the bees react to the bamboo filled with paper.

On January 12 I mounted the condos

 I know I am a bit early this year.  However, I mounted the mason bee condos on January 12, 2021.

Late in the evening January 12 a storm started. During the night high winds and heavy rain continued.

I was concerned that the bad weather would damage the condos. When I examined the condos late morning on January 13 I was happy to see no damage occurred.

Now I will keep watch to see if any wild mason bees nest.  Since mason bees can emerge as early as mid February, I intend to hold off releasing my bees until mid March.  In fact, I may not allow my bees to be free.   It may be a benefit to avoid parasites which may have invaded my bees.

Tube making continues and by end of today, I have completed all tube making

 Both mason bee condos are in the process of tube loading.  One condo is totally full and the other is about 3/4ths full.  I am  using a combination of hand made paper tubes and freshly cut black bamboo.

I never reuse bamboo tubes.  If a bamboo tube was not used by the bees last year, then I discard it. I assume there was something wrong with it.

This year I carefully cut the node end so that it is not wider then the rest of the tube.  

I calculate it takes me about 30 seconds to make one paper tube.  So that an hour of tube making results in approximately 120 tubes. The final step in paper tube making is to plug one end with white clay.  Some of the bamboo tubes are not cut at a node so I also plug each one with the white clay.

I am putting a small amount of silicone caulking on the end of each tube as it is loaded into the mason bee condo.

This year I may mount the mason bee condos outside much earlier than last year.  The highly beneficial climate change may allow the bees to start their work earlier. I do not want to limit their access to tubes.

Even though the bees may not begin until pI day, aka Einstein's birthday and circa Julius Caesar's murder, I still plan to mount the condos before the end of January.

At this point I have all the tubes ready. As soon as I get them loaded, I intend to mouth the condos. I have been doing this for 3 years. I think I have a pretty good handle on bee storage, tube construction and mason be condo preparation and mounting.  

I think I may prepare a few glass bottles and load some tubes. I intend to use dark glass wine bottles.

tube building

 I am building two kinds of tubes.

1. paper tubes which are made from 8.5x11 white paper,

each piece of paper makes 2 tubes. Most tubes are made on a 5/16 inch dowels. Elmer's white glue is used in small amounts to make the paper stick together. One end of the tube is plugged with white clay.

2. bamboo tubes are cut to about 5 inches long. If the tube has no node, then one end is plugged with the white clay.

I plan to fix more bamboo tubes.  The second to last step will be to install the tubes and the last step is mounting the condos on the wall.

Mason Bee rebuild process

Mason Bee rebuild process

I took both of my mason bee condos and cleaned them up. I pulled out old staples and nailed everything. I have some thin styrofoam which is sandwiched between layers of thin paper. I put the styrofoam on the condos so that the tubes will be protected from the rain. I have found it is important to soak the panels in water. It only takes a few minutes, then I remove the paper. You have to remove the paper, otherwise in the weather the paper warps the foam.  Just get rid of the paper.

The bottom of one condo had many black spots. I took it off and soaked it in diluted bleach for about 20 minutes. Then I rinsed it off under running water. I put it next to an heating system air vent to dry it. 

In a day or so, I will attached the dried bottom to the condo.

I have many tubes completed.  As soon as the condos are complete, I will install the tubes.

Ok the bottom is now attached to the bee condo. I need to make more tubes so that I can fill up the condos.

My paper tube progress

 I timed my tube construction so that each tube takes a total of about one minute. That includes cutting paper, rolling paper (while gluing), taping each end and finally plugging one end with clay.  

So when I set down to make tubes I figure an hour will produce about 60 tubes.

Tube construction

 Starting yesterday, I have been making tubes. I use two sizes of dowels, quarter inch and 5/16 inch.  I use good ole'fashion computer paper.  I have made about 80 tubes, so far.  I don't worry about the exact number of tubes of each size.  It is about half of each size.

After rolling a tube using elmer's glue I finish with two or three pieces of masking tape to secure the flap.

I bought a 2.5 lb tub of white modeling clay at Walmart. It cost a few cents over 5 dollars.  It is essential to seal one end of each tube. According to the label, the clay drys slowly. So after three months the tubes will be ready. If I have completed all tubes by first of January, the clay will have plenty of drying time prior to March 15 (Pi day).  Pi day is the day most mason bees recognize as the beginning of the mason bees life cycle.

Soon I will begin cutting and shaving the bamboo tubes.

It is essential to have a good supply of black bamboo tubes because mason bees prefer black bamboo tubes to all other types of tubes.

rain and cold

 weather not good

Hardware cloth box.

 Early in the spring of 2021 I will move my bees from their winter storage into this quarter-inch hardware cloth box. I will put it near the prepared condo. The box will protect the bees from birds.The bag is opened but the overhang from the house protects the bees from rain.

 Mason bee cocoons shown drying after the rinse.

I am not going to try to count these cocoons but I estimate about 250 .  Notice the large objects on right side of the paper.  These are the deepest section of a bamboo tube. It is extremely difficult to remove a cocoon from this woody material, so I leave it along. The deep section only includes one cocoon.

I love spell checkers, because I am such a lousy speller.  So I never won a spelling bee. Turns out winning spelling bees is worthless. 

3 more photos of the cocoon removal process

 

notice above, 5 good cocoons but second to bottom shows a cell with Houdini fly maggots

o

look at center of photo , the bamboo tube shows the typical filled tube. The color of the clay depends on the local clay, but most of mine are gray in color

This is a cocoon secured into the very back of a bamboo tube.  While sometimes the parasites can attack this position, the location is typically extreemly safe for the cocoon. So safe that it is even difficult for me to remove the cocoon.

Recap of my mason bee management

 I started managing mason bees in the spring of 2018.

By the fall, I discovered no bees filled tubes in the mason bee house which I provided.  Early in spring of 2019 I purchased a few tubes of mason bees. By the end of(October) 2019 I counted about 75 cocoons.

This year I started with my harvested bag of bees(75).  Now my population has grown to approximately 250 cocoons. Of course, I do not know how many of the cocoons are viable. They look viable, but I have no way of know if any disease or parasite has invaded the cocoons.

This winter I will rebuild my mason bee condos and maybe add one condo.  I should put out about 300 tubes. We will see the results at the end of 2021 season.

So far I have cleaned up the houses. I intend to do some structural repair and I will soak the condos in a rather stong solution of water and bleach. I figure that will virtually steralize the wood.

I have a fairly large crop of black bamboo. If I run out of black bamboo tubes, I will fill in the remainder of the space with hand crafted paper tubes.  Since bees seem to like variable size holes, I will make sure I provide a variety of sizes.

Inside a freshly opened black bamboo tube

 Some good cocoons and some destroyed. No in betweens.

Either alive or  dead.  The white worms (larvae) are BAD news

Photos from the cleaning of the condos.

Above is a photo of an opened bamboo tube (black bamboo)

Basically, I just split the tube at the end and pry it open. Actually, very simple to accomplish. 

The only real problem is when a cocoon is stuck in the very back of the tube. That  one can be difficult to extract.  It only occurs for about 1 in 50 cocoons.  The

big problem is parasitic wasp and fly larvae. The parasites actually destroy cocoons.

Above is an example of an empty tube.

Above is an example of a destroyed cocoon. I suspect it is some kind of fungus.

 

October 11, 2020 Bees have been removed from condos and stored for the winter.

Ok, yesterday and today I tore into the mason bee condos.

I found lots of nasty parasites. Two types of parasite larvae were found. One type is off-white larvae, very small. The other type was a quarter inch larvae which were dark in color.  Some tubes had no viable mason bee cocoons.  Very disappointing.

Generally speaking I think the parasites destroyed half of my cocoons. None the less, my final count was an estimate of 250 viable cocoons.

A typical situation was the first and last mason bee cocoon were intact. But all the cocoons in between were consumed by the NASTY parasites.  

The amazing thing is quite often all the bees were destroyed except for the very first one laid. I do not know why. Maybe the mother laid the egg and had, peak energy to pack the cell with a little extra clay. I don't know.  

After removing all the cocoons I washed the cocoons in a very dilute water/bleach solution. Then I rinsed the cocoons in clean fresh water.

Interestingly, I found no cocoons which did not float.

After the rinse, I placed them on dry paper towel and then on a second dry paper towel.

I placed them in a JCPenney plastic bag (just like cloth, but very durable) which lets air flow freely.  I put the entire bag in a large plastic jar and covered the hole with 1/4 inch hardware cloth.

Then, I put the whole thing in another plastic bag which allows air to flow freely.

Just like last fall I hung the storage on the north side of my outdoor shed.

Now I wait until March 15.

I have a number of photos of the bees during the cleaning process. The photos will be posted soon.

It has taken me 3 years to get to my current population.

The first year I put out a mason bee house. I got nothing. The second year i actually purchased four tubes of cocoons. The result was at the beginning of the 3rd year I had about 75 cocoons. Now at the end of the 3rd year I have 250 cocoons.

 

Here are the bees immediately after the 

    1) wash

     2) rinse

Then

   3) dry

                      4)store in cloth type bag

  I estimate the total number is 250 cocoons.

Time to eliminate the Houdini fly

 The nasty little Houdini fly maggots do not know what is coming.  Tomorrow they get eliminated from the bee-condos. I am sure it is better to kill the Houdini fly now as compared to waiting until they emerge in the spring.

 I plan to run my movie camera as I remove the mason bee cocoons from the bee-condos.

You will see the cocoons which have been destroyed and the cells which have been hijacked by Houdini flies.

Because of the recent invasion of Houdini flies I expect to be smashing plenty of the little white maggots.  

After I have harvested the mason bee cocoons my next task will be to cut black bamboo tubes and make the white paper tubes.  I have wooden dowels which are sized to the mason bee desires.  

Finally, I will reconstruct the bee-condos. 

The routed wood trays will be discarded. They take up room in the bee-condo and just do not work.

 

not many bees left this time of year

 I checked one tube of my mason bees and discovered only two viable cocoons. One area of the tube was chuck full of some nasty little white maggots. The tiny maggots could be the houdini fly maggots.  Houdini or not the pesky little white maggots got ground into mush.

In the next few days I will be going though both condos and saving the good mason bee cocoons for the spring.

Back in July, there had been two filled tubes in the routed wood trays. However, when I inspected today, I discovered they were all gone. Some nasty insect must have destroyed them.😠

I am no fan of the routed-wood-trays.  

Close to cocoon harvest

 Ok it is now Sept 25, in a few more days it will be

demolition time for the mason bee condos.  I will

mix up a batch of bleach (very diluted) and water and

wash my cocoons. I will be separating out the parasites and put those babies away for the winter.

Once I have the cocoons put away I will start the process of cutting bamboo and rolling paper tubes.

update on the Asian Giant Hornet

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6781997/Giant-killer-hornet-believed-new-species-largest-world.html

• The hornet is 'so much larger' that experts think it must be a new species
• This news from   Mail Online

Mason bees love the Winter Daphne in the early spring.

 

Bees just love the Hybiscus flowers (Rose of Sharon), Humming birds also love them

When the humming birds take over, the clicking is huge.

 

I got honey bees.

 

road runner in New Mexico

 

Getting ready for the cocoon harvest, inspection and storage

 It is already September 10.  Soon I will be tearing apart the condos. Each tube will be emptied and all the cocoons will be cleaned and inspected.  I will store the cocoons in a special air mesh bag for the winter. From what I can tell I will have about 200 cocoons from this years egg laying.  I hope for more, but for sure I should have 200 cocoons.

Next spring I will carefully monitor the release of bees and will kill the nasty Houdini flies.  I really hate those nasty files.  

One of my mason bees checking out a space in the bee condo. She refused to sign the lease and the annual price was free. I include free child care. She still refused.

 Here is a photo of a mason bee checking our a tube. It was April 14, 2020. Many of the bamboo tubes were already filled. So she was inspecting a routed-wood-tray.

She hated it. They want BAMBOO tubes.  I will only provide paper and bamboo tubes for 2021. 

 

June 10, 2020

I was surprised today to notice several mason bees loading up vacant tubes.
They look a bit different that the bees which I had early this spring.
They are also black but appear to be just a little larger. From the looks of the
activity these bees will fill the remaining tubes in a couple weeks.

May 26, 2020 one last bee, hard to believe

Yes, one last mason be still working on filling a tube
SHe is smart because all the nasty houdini flies are gone.
So she does not have to contend with the rotten, nasty houdini file
She can be seen at the most far right corner of the bee-condo

May 20, 2020

As far as I can see the mason bees are done.

Bamboo tubes are about 80% filled.

Now I wait until October when I will extract the cocoons and
save them for March 1.

may 17,2020

No activity today. It looks like the season is basically over.
I thought the bees were active until June 1 but maybe not.
We will see over the next few days.

May 16,2020

The tubes are almost all filled.

When I say almost all, I mean only bamboo and paper.  Only one
of the routed-wood-tray tubes was filled.

Despite the great recommendations, I don't think the bees like the
routed-wood-tray  tubes.

Bees are voting with their wings.

May 13, 2020

Today I am declaring war on Houdini flies.
I am going to  fight them with the hand held vacuum.

May 12, 2020 Houdini flies are invading my mason bee condos

My bees are doing fine, except for the nasty Houdini flies.  See article at bottom page.

To date my spoiled little bees are still choosing my expensive black bamboo tubes over  the options.

Occasionally, they choose a paper or cardboard tube. On one occasion, a bee filled up a routed wood tray tube.

What can I say ?!?   They are picky, picky, picky.

Both condos appear to be approaching 80 percent occupancy.

I am like the king of bees. I watch over them.

I am going to start trying to kill the nasty Houdini fly.  Such despicable insect !

I see tiny flies flying around the condos.  The appear the size of fruit flies.
Hope they are not some kind of  parasite.  They are not a hymenoptera, look like a small diptera.

NUTS ! ! ! !
Read this item written by Crown Bees
----> https://crownbees.com/houdinifly

may 10, 2020 Virtual Event: Mother's Day Mason Bee House Workshop

https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/events/virtual-event-mothers-day-mason-bee-house-workshop

May 9, 2020 First routed-wood-tray hole filled today.

For the first time a mason bee has decided to fill  up a hole
in the routed-wood-trays.   In addition, another mason bee has
been using another hole. I can tell because there is a large amount
of  yellow powder lining the entrance to the tube.

A this point there are approximately 150 tubes filled.  The bees are
taking greater interest in paper tubes. 

Popular wisdom says that a bee condo should receive morning sun.

Actually, my best bee house faces due west. It first gets sun at about
noon.  I think the morning sun idea may sound good, but in my experience
it does not work.  I think the bees want the sun from noon to sundown.
My bees are a special variety of late risers. They look at me like I am their
god. So they know I am a late riser. The good little minions and do not
want to insult the all mighty by getting up too early.

I know they know who I am because they shoot right out of the tubes
into my face. Pelting me with their shiny bodies.

May 7, 2020

Hard to count precisely but it now looks like roughly 50 filled tubes in both
condos. 
I still dot see any routed-wood-trays with any filled tubes.  I thought there would
be a few.

There must be something wrong with the wood,  I actually had thought it
would be better to buy my own router. I do not trust the wood.

May 6 , 2020

My mason bee tenants in my bee-condos  are not happy about
the routed-out-wood trays. 

To date, not one routed-out-wood tray has a filled tube.

I really don't know what could cause their avoidance.

May 5, 2020 Cinco De Mayo

I wonder if mason bees care?

What I can say is that the bees continue to avoid routed-wood-trays. I mean
not a single filled tube in the routed-wood-trays.   Instead of using the routed-wood-trays
the bees are opting for paper tubes. 

The bees continue to mostly choose the bamboo tubes.  Occasionally, they choose paper
but that is it.

I have plenty of flowers so the bees are keeping busy.  I have about a dozen blueberry
bushes. To date I have only seen one mason bee on a blueberry bush.

I really don't know what flowers are best for them. One neighbor has a dogwood tree and the flowers have been blooming for a couple of weeks.

May 2, 2020

Not many bees active today.  I have read that mason bees fly in light rain.
I have not seen that. And today's rain seems to be keeping them grounded.

The availability of empty bamboo tubes is becoming rare.
The choosy bees are now filling paper tubes. Yet, no a single routed wood tray
tube has been filled.  I have seen a few bees entering routed-wood-tray tubes.
As I have said, none filled.

I may totally discard the routed-wood-trays and use bamboo tubes and paper.
It is easy to open the bamboo tubes. I know there are people
who extoll the benefits of routed-wood-trays.  I don't know for certain but I suspect
the reason they like the trays is because they sell them.

May 1st, 2020

At noon I will be checking on my Bees.
We will see at noon how the good the tube filling work is going.

From last October's cocoon harvest , I figure the average number of
cocoons by tube is 3.  While some egg laying afficaniato bees can lay
up to 8 eggs per long tube, that is really quite rare.  Many capped off
tubes contain only 1 cocoon. Two is not very rare.  But the average
is about 3 for all tubes.  This October I plan to develop some complete
statistics.

In any case, each condo has already completed about 40 tubes.  I think
based on available empty tubes, we may have 80 tubes per condo.
The would be a total of 160 tubes.  That could mean about 480 cocoons.
If 60 percent are females, that would give me nearly 300  FEMALE 
baby bees in March 2021.

According to Google

at end of growing season the cocoons must be cleaned

according to the following  protocol

Using a spoon, swirl the cocoons in a 0.05 percent bleach solution (1-2 teaspoons of household bleach into 1 gallon of water). 

After 1 to 2 minutes, rinse for 3-4 min in cool water to get the bleach off.

I washed my cocoons last October but I don't think my protocol was exactly as above. This coming October, I will certainly use this advice.

April 30, 2020

The bees are filling up the tubes.  It is obvious that they tend to fill tubes which are grouped together. The girls are running out of choice bamboo tubes and are now stepping down to the paper tubes more often.

 Not one single routed wood tray hole has been filled.   Not one.

The crazy bees will bolt out of tubes and fly right into my face. Of course they dont sting, but their game is to hit me.  As crazy as they are, I still love them.

April 29, 2020 Month is nearly over

Both condos have lots of filled tubes.  Condo#1 has about 40 filled and Condo#2
has about 30.
Inspecting the condos shows that typically two or three bees have their li
crazy heads sticking out of the tube.  What are they doing? resting?

I noticed one tube with a large diameter and lots of light so that I could see a yellow wall.
The old female must be out getting mud. Or maybe she is going to fetch more pollen?

Considering this is not even the end of April, I guess the bees have about two more
weeks to totally fill up both condos.

I will need to build a third condo for next year.  I hate to have my bees run out of
tubes and go to some other location.

I rarely see bees visiting blueberry flowers. I actually rarely see the mason bees visiting
any flowers.  Today I did see one mason bee on a blueberry flower. It was interesting
to see that she spent about two minutes. It appeared that she was just sucking nectar.'

According to www.masonbees.com,
"A single Mason Bee visits 20,000+ blossoms per day "
They recommend 10 bees per fruit tree.  
I think I had about 60 cocoons with emergences.  I have 12 blueberry bushes  3 pear trees,
two cherry trees.   Maybe I am a tad short this year but if my condos fill up by end of this
season, maybe I will be in good shape next spring.

April 27, 2020 Some of my bees are smart

Some of my bees are smart and some are really confused.  I like the ones
who quickly decide which tube to use.  Others fool around for up to 10 minutes before finally
deciding which tube to us.  Some bees are so stupid that they try to force their
way into a tube which is clearly to small.

On condo#1 the bees basically avoid the tubes in the middle of the house.
On condo#2 a one tube in the middle has been used.

behaviour of mason bees

url in the INFORMATION  page confirms my observation that mason bees like to "hang together".

I usually see two or three return to the condo at the same time.  

April 26, 2020 Steady activity

The bees are showing steady activity but  not overwhelming.

The thing I have been noticing is
that when mason bees return to the bee condo, they typically do so in pairs.