Mason bees are named after masonry for a reason since female mason bees protect each nesting chamber with a wall of clayey mud.

If mason bees can't find clayey mud nearby their bee house, they simply won't nest and will fly away to find another site. Female mason bees carry a mud ball in their large mandibles (jaws) and they are looking for a mud that they can manipulate.

Releasing, or setting out, spring mason bee cocoons is easy and there are a few guidelines that you should follow to keep the bees happy and healthy.

• Spring mason bees need a minimum daytime temperature of about 55F/13C (don’t worry about nighttime temperatures) and they need open blooms to feed.

Native hole-nesting bees, just like any creature, have their own set of diseases and pests that, when left unchecked, can harm or kill them.

We know that our native mason and leafcutter bees are unable to clean out their nesting holes. Nesting holes should be opened once a year to remove diseases like chalkbrood (a deadly fungal infection) and pests like pollen mites (they eat the pollen loaf before the larvae can). At the very least, fresh nesting holes should be provided every year.

Sometimes, spring mason bees wake up before your fruit trees and berry plants start blooming. Don't worry, you can provide bees who emerged early inside of your HumidiBee with a couple of options. Includes how to set out cocoons.

Setting up your bee house for spring mason bees is easy and only takes a few minutes.

Here are our expert tips for setting up your bee house in a location that mason bees will love!

It's the time of year to talk about the bees and the bees! Even though the world is home to a huge diversity of bee species, they all share a common feature - mother bees are able to choose the sex of each egg! Learn how sex determination works and why we all need to avoid neonic pesticides.

Follow the story of the construction of a bee hotel! Using donated materials from local residents, Cornell Cooperative Extension in Schuyler County is building an educational pollinator hotel in their garden. The hotel will be located in a teaching garden open to the public, where members of the community can pass by and grab a flyer or read about the bees.

To celebrate National Pollinator Week 2017, Crown Bees featured the work of researchers that are studying native bees across the country. Many of the researchers sourced nesting materials or hole-nesting bee cocoons from Crown Bees.

Dr. Jason Graham is the lead researcher developing conservation for the endangered Hawaiian yellow-faced bees in the Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences Department at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Seven species of Hawaii's yellow-faced bees were placed on the endangered species list in October 2016, these are the first species of bees to be protected and labeled as endangered.