Mason Bee Fall Harvest - Watch How We Clean 3 Million Mason Bee Cocoons

Whether you rent from our program and we clean your bees or your host your own, it's important to harvest and clean your mason bee cocoons every fall. Watch this video as we walk you through our process step by step to learn how.
FIRE- We sterilize all our nesting blocks to remove predators like pollen mites and fungus.
WATER - We give our bees a bath in a mild water and bleach solution to clean off all the mud and predators.
LIGHT - We pick out every cocoon that is no longer viable on our light table.
About Rent Mason Bees:
Our program makes it easy to become a solitary bee host. Gardeners purchase a bee kit that comes with house, nesting block, clay and bees. You release solitary bees into your yard and RENT our nesting blocks for your bees. When you release the bees into your yard they will lay babies in your natural habitat and your nesting block. Harvesting and cleaning the cocoons and blocks is a critical step when hosting solitary bees to remove harmful predators. When you rent from us we take care of the maintenance and cleaning for you. You keep the black house and return the nesting blocks back to us. The following year, you will just need to reorder an “insert” with a sterilized nesting block and clean bees. Please watch our Fall Harvest Video to see how we clean them.
• Our Mason Bee Fall Harvest (why you Rent… we do all the cleaning) - • Mason Bee Fall Harvest...
• Inside a Mason & Leafcutter Block (the importance of why you need to harvest and clean… remove predators) • Predators On the Insid...
Mason bees need spring blooms and leafcutter bees need summer blooms. We provide a variety of options to help you become a solitary bee host. Our Mason Bee Starter kits come with a black shelter, nesting block, bag of clay and pollinator seeds. If you would like both spring and summer pollinators, our Pollinator Package comes with spring mason and summer leafcutter bees, two different nesting blocks for both bees, bag of clay for your masons and flower seeds. We send you both bees and you put out the mason block out first in spring and swap the blocks with the leafcutter block in summer. Don’t worry, we’ll notify you and teach you along the way. Here is a video we did about swapping blocks: “When to Swap Nesting Blocks” - • When to Remove Mason B...
Here is our store link. rentmasonbees....
Here are some of our favorite videos about solitary bees:
• PBS did a beautiful video on mason bees and how they build their nests - • Watch This Bee Build H...
• Life Cycle of a Mason Bee - • Life Cycle of the Orch...
• How to Successfully Raise Mason & Leafcutter Bees - • Learn How to Successfu...
• A Year with Mason Bees (this is a compilation of the 30 educational videos we made in 2021) - • Mason Bee Highlight Vi...
• Mason Bee Tribute Video in macro lens and slow motion - • Tribute to Pollinators...
• Learn About Mason Bees - • Learn About Spring Pol...
• Learn About Leafcutter Bees - • Learn About Leafcutter...
Please sign up for our newsletter so you can get all the important information we send to our hosts on successful hosting tips.
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If you have kids or grandkids, we created a program to teach kids about pollinators with free printable workbooks and worksheets. Turn Kids into Backyard Scientists - Teach Kids About Mason Bees & How They Make Our Food - Rent Mason Bees
Learn what to plant in your garden to support pollinators. Pollinator Partnership has created “recipe” cards for your region. www.pollinator...
Since we’re on a roll, one more item to share… Birds & Blooms Magazine and Mother Earth News both published articles this month on solitary bees. In addition to all the above information, you’ll learn so much more reading this article in Mother Earth News: “Backyard Solitary Bees”
Visit our website to learn more: rentmasonbees....

[@roxstix]

It's amazing how the process doesn't damage the cacoons.

[@jeanned3874]

Fascinating

[@sherrywhitman9820]

This was amazing and so helpful.

[@novampires223]

This is brilliant! I remember when we first became aware of mason bees, I drilled holes in everything, including the posts on my front porch! I Love them. Delighted when they started to be raised commercially. You have a great operation here, best of luck.

[@RentMasonBees]

Thank you so much. If you're raising your own, please learn how to clean and harvest your cocoons to rid them of predators. Here's a video on how to do that. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b5CUiJ97ebmsns0si=1acCC5U8tiLarJIu

[@Heartbeat4Japan]

This is amazing! I only recently started looking into mason bees (courtesy of a curious 5 year old) to expand my casual knowledge. The conveyor system is a work of art!

[@RentMasonBees]

We have a great youth program to teach kids about solitary bees with free printable workbooks and worksheets. rentmasonbees.com/school-programs/

[@Heartbeat4Japan]

@@RentMasonBees oh wonderful! We already watched this video together and she's fascinated by the process. Once we get our little garden tower put together and planted, we'll be renting some bee condos 🐝😁

[@fittzwm]

BEES! We are so happy to host bees every year. Keep up the great, important work.

[@fredquashne8092]

❤this...thanks for your hard work!

[@garywillson1900]

I enjoyed the video, and just ordered 1 kit over the phone. The lady was very nice and helpful. I'm looking forward to the shipment.

[@Water_Rat]

This process was so neat to see! I also really liked seeing the ingenuity of your machines, disinfection and drying processes. I had no idea that mason bee larvae were harvested and redistributed in these quantities. May I suggest an idea for picking non viable larvae which could speed up that task for you? I used to work in a federal salmon enhancement facility where we would pick non viable salmon eggs out of groups of up to 200,000 eggs. We used ‘homemade’ egg pickers made of thin metal banding about 3/4” wide and 12 to 16 inches long depending on personal preference, folded at the centre to bring the ends together and then attached suitable sized paper clip to each end using solder or epoxy, making sure the paper clips line up with each other. This made a springy set of tweezers with which we could pick dead eggs much more quickly than picking with fingers, with minimal disturbance of live eggs. While it looks like the bee cocoons are not nearly as sensitive as salmon eggs, these tweezers may help speed up your process of picking out the non viable ones. There are commercial tweezers available but we found that our homemade ones worked better. If you would like to see what the commercial ones look like to give you an idea on how to make them I can send a link to a company that sells them to your info@ address. Happy picking!

[@RentMasonBees]

Hi Robert. Yes. Please email us. It’s a tedious step in our harvest. Volunteers usually help us during this step to speed things up. Thank you so much.

[@MannyGonzalezReyna]

This is just amazing!

[@sallyb.9865]

we will be hosting our first bees from you this spring. Very excited!

[@horizontalbees3480]

Very nice process and Great video!!

[@littlebacchus216]

This is truly amazing! You've in essence made a way to industrialise producing bees. While it is sad that there is a need for this I am overjoyed that someone picked up the torch and ran with it. I'm in the UK and unsure if we have such a program over here but I truly hope so as this makes it amazingly simple for almost anyone to help bees in a way that can have a massive impact. I'd be very interested if you share the model you have set up with people around the world and if you have information on what it takes to set up a system like this?

[@goatbees]

That was very interesting! Thanks.

[@jonlemelin8992]

Thank you. Great video. Looking forward to renting some bees from you in the spring!

[@Hebrews12_2]

Amaaaazing

[@rosecroix2467]

Cool!

[@somebodywatchin]

Holy moly! I didn’t know anything about this! No clue. Why doesn’t the bleach kill The bees?

[@RentMasonBees]

I know... crazy right? Mason bees spin a silk cocoon that is waterproof, so the light bleach solution kills the pollen mites. You can see them floating in the water, like sludge when done cleaning. If you think thats amazing, check out the our new video Life Cycle of Mason Bee. It took us two years to film. You'll learn why it's so important to clean. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bXuvoqiFj8mnrbcsi=X6OXmmYN3Jt4EHJH

[@aperson1181]

how to sterilize cacoons and the houses at home?

[@pozzee2809]

Hi, I just wanted you to know that the Houdini fly has made it to Surrey BC 🇨🇦. We have three large mason bee houses and our bees fill them every year. But this is the first year that we have seen these flies and there are thousands of them. We have been vacuuming them up three times a day and there are now much fewer of them. We pulled the full tubes at put them in a fine mesh bag with the sealed end standing up. The next day we had to open the mesh and vacuum up about a dozen flies that had been hiding! Do you think all this movement in May is going to have hurt the development of the bees?

[@RentMasonBees]

Yes. They are on the rise and the biggest way you can help is to harvest and clean your nesting blocks every fall. Houdini fly larvae are very easy to spot and remove. The problem with them is they lay 15-20 babies in each mason bee nesting cell and emerge in spring with the mason bees. They kill the developing mason bee baby and then you're left with tubes full of predators. Are you cleaning them every fall? It is so important to do so. Here is a video on what to identify inside your nesting material when you clean. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sH3KYZWPjcyoY7csi=H1P3cqHpqGUKYeLZ

[@yartriesthis]

So mason bees are bumble bees? Also How come I seen dead bees on a blades of grass?

[@DLong-wp8su]

Are you remove other bee cocoons in the process?

[@RentMasonBees]

Usually they are only mason bee cocoons, mud and their predators. Mason bee nesting blocks need to be removed and stored at the end of spring. If they are left out over summer, then other predators like wasps will go in. On occasion we may find leafcutter bees cells if left out in summer and if so, we gently remove them by hand and safely store.

[@victorialast4755]

How do you know which ones are male and which are female?

[@blubbietweeduizend]

Males are smaller.

[@Phingolfina]

I don't think it matters at this cocoon stage. They give a large enough sample of bee cocoons out such that you are going to be assured that you have enough males and females to reproduce.

[@gardenhotline]

That was my question too since in the wild mason bees have an elegant system of having females in the back and males in the front of the nesting holes. If the delivered cocoons are plentiful you will get enough females I imagine.

[@andrewlay88]

Would love to try this $100 seems steep for a kit that you don't own.

[@RentMasonBees]

We make all our houses and nesting blocks in our wood shop, paint, bag clay and flower seeds and then all hands on deck for the harvest and cleaning process. It’s a labor of love for the benefits of releasing bees and not worrying about any maintenance or cleaning in the fall. You keep the black house and the following year order a clean nest block and clean bees.

[@andrewlay88]

@Rent Mason Bees ordered a kit for this Spring.

[@RentMasonBees]

@@andrewlay88 welcome to our bee family! Reach out any time if you have questions. [e-mail]

[@andrewlay88]

@Rent Mason Bees Thanks, when will they be shipped for MO.

[@RentMasonBees]

@@andrewlay88 Mid-March/April. If you have a specific week you’d like them please email [e-mail]

[@ashleyw1278]

Find it rather upsetting she just keeps playing with them and dropping them like they're beans or something. Shouldn't disturb them more than you have to during the whole process.