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I made a house for native bee species. I made this last fall and brought it out in early March and put it down under a table. I had planed to give it another good sanding before hanging it beneath the garage eves.

Before I could do that a mason bee had set to work. I'll have little baby bees next March.

I am hoping that I'll get some leaf roller bees later in the summer. I am told they prefer rose leaves and we have lots of those.

Mason bees pollinate at a much higher rate than the imported honey bees and our pear tree has more fruit than it ever has before. I'm not sure it was the mason bee that is responsible but it is an interesting coincidence.

Mason bees.
Leaf cutter or roller bees.

That is so cool! I bought one of the ones with reeds in it, a couple of years ago, but no one ever moved in.

Homes for bees; homes for kitties.....sounding like a farmstead. I love that y'all are looking after all the critters.

Wow. Success!

That's awesome. You're doing so much great caretaking of the beings. I hope to have a pollinator-friendly garden one day.

When I planted the tomatoes, there was a frog or toad in the garden, so I made it a little house out of a small plant pot. Used one of those fiber plant pots to give it a thatch roof, but the critter has moved on.

needlegrrl, I notice most of the commercial bee houses never have pictures of them occupied. I think a lot of them have holes that are too large. you could try lining them with rolled up baking paper. Of course it could also be a lack of early flowers. Mason bees seem to like fruit trees as they bloom very early.

Still it's worth trying again.

The next endeavor will be to find a place for some milkweed plants for the migrating monarch butterflies.

theora55, my late father in law used to do that too.

I have two bee houses. One, which gets the morning sun, is full of bees. The other, on the opposite fence, is empty. I'm going to move it next to the other. Morning sun seems to be the favoured location.

Yeah everything I've read says point them east. It is so odd that this bee took to this house as it is under a table under a covered space.