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Each month our Bee Informed Blog highlights current news, science, and research related to solitary bee conservation, food insecurity, and sustainability.1. The loss of insects is an apocalypse worth worrying about(Vox) Perhaps you don’t think much about the value of dung beetles. But without them crawling around farms, stables, and wild savannas today, the world would be pretty, er, shitty. What about the importance of small, mosquito-like flies called midges? Without them, there’d be no chocol …

We love mason bees for many reasons! They're early spring pollinators, a lot of fun to watch, and require very little maintenance compared to honey bees, making them perfect bees for busy gardeners and farmers.Traditionally, spring mason bee care included three simple steps. Step one, Install the mason bee house—step two, release mason bee cocoons. Step three, sit back and relax while these super pollinators do their thing. However, the Houdini Fly, an invasive parasite of the mason bee, has add …

The solitary bee industry is taking off, which attracts companies with the sole purpose of making money. We helped start the industry back in 2008 and see both good and bad practices abound! Your success is honestly important to us, and we want to give you the tools to make informed decisions.A growing industry, while popular, can often breed problems. Perhaps the biggest problem facing the solitary bee industry is the boom of uninformed people/companies selling bees and products. Did you know t …

When we talk about our commitment to environmental sustainability at Crown Bees, we refer to the mindfulness of our effect on our environment and natural resources. As a company and as individuals, we make a conscious effort to reduce our environmental impact as much as possible to protect future generations of people (and bees).We recognized that becoming truly sustainable will be a challenge as a small company. The path to reaching our future goals of becoming a B Corp certified business, movi …

As winter settles in with the bees nestled safely in their nesting materials, we wanted to take this time to fill you in on our top 5 highlights from 2021!1. Another Successful Bee Buy Back SeasonA big THANK YOU to all of our Bee Farmers, Bee Buy Back Participants, and Harvesting Volunteers this season! We've harvested, inspected for pests and disease, and cleaned over 300,000 mason bee cocoons from all across the country. That's enough to pollinate over 16,000 gardens in 2022! The bees are now …