Day 85 I’m an Apiarist!

Mason bees at work...

I mentioned awhile back to my husband that I was intrigued with the idea of setting up a mason bee colony. Megan and I had seen them at a nursery, where we’d learned that there’s been an overall decline in the population of pollinators. We large, clumsy, land-greedy humans have messed up a lot of habitat, and ultimately, no pollinators means death for us all. Kind of like losing the sun, I guess.

As he’s allergic to bees, he did not meet this idea with enthusiasm. (Plus, I have a history of great ideas that end up forgotten in a closet somewhere, which is no big deal if it’s something like scrap-booking, but not cool for ideas that are alive and breathing. I’m of the opinion that in order for a few ideas to stick, one must try many, but I’ll c0ncede the point on this.)

It turns out that mason bees are a non-aggressive species. They’re more efficient than honey bees, with less stinging. They just want to go about their buzzy little business and couldn’t care less about humans.

But I didn’t bother making the argument.

Then, last night, the girls gave me my Mother’s Day gift: a colony of mason bees, and a nifty little condo for them! (FYI: the cocoons come in a pill-vial and look like rabbit turds. “Um, thanks …?”)

“Dad really does love you,” said Andrea, giving credit where credit’s due. He and Megan did the legwork, and turns out it was quite a search expedition to find the nursery that sold them, since he couldn’t exactly ask me about it, and Megan’s spatial abilities are a lot like mine. As in “it’s on a highway somewhere.”

My new little bee-house!

So now I’ve got mason bees! I put them out next to the climbing roses. Can’t wait to see what they do.

But here’s the best part: my husband did something he didn’t really want to do, just for me, because he thought it would make me happy.

You know what? It worked!