We have lots of Bumble Bees, assorted wasps and had a lot of Mason Bees which have filled up their new house but no Honey Bees. It looks like a repeat of last year. No Honey Bees all spring but when the Michaelmas Daisy bed started to bloom they arrived in short order, the bed was swarming with them. I was thinking a Bee keeper near by must have brought his hives back home after having them farmed out for the summer. I hoping they come back this fall, time will tell.
It was on the news lately that Bee Keepers have been opening up their hives to find half the bees dead, not really knowing the cause.
A......

I am worrying about their absence too. Most of the trees in our orchard have no fruit, but then if I was a bee I wouldn't have been buzzing about during this cold, nasty spring! When I was a child, I was stung on my foot so when I am walking through flowering clover, daisies, etc. I watch for bees. This year, none. I've watched bee activity on my raspberries (good catch here) but usually a sort of small bumblebee. Also, Kiwis seem to be doing well despite my not noticing bee activity. You are right though, no honeybees.

I have no Honey Bees at my location. I've had Mason Bees for 8 years so I have no problem with fruit pollination. I did lose a lot of Bees this year due to,I believe, cold days and nights. Normally I would have 300+ tubes filled but wound up with only 100-150. which if far more than I need. I usually give 200-300 tubes to the Curran Apple Orchard here in University Place as they have no Bees either.

Dotty, I have a pear tree espaliered on the back side of my green house, a good crop of pears coming this year. The last few years we have been encouraging the Blue Orchard Mason Bees by putting up houses for them. First DH made a couple of houses by drilling holes in blocks of wood and hanging them up. This year we bought one that you insert the cardboard tubes in, they seemed to prefer this type as they filled it up in no time at all. These are the little guys that pollinate our pear tree every year. Your Bumble Bees, have they a reddish body, those are the ones we have too they're working the Raspberries and they're in the Hypericum out front.
A......

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Thanks for the input. I am going to get some mason bee houses and/or get my DH to make some. If you start getting them houses will there be more, I wonder, and where do you put the houses - sun or shade?
We did get pollinated apples so I think there were honey bees around earlier....hope they come back.

The more houses you put up the more bees you will get, I might be wrong but I think they are finished for the year, but by all means build some houses and put them up the bees will find them in the spring. Our old houses didn't fill up like the new one as they are not easy to clean out and we weren't quite sure when they were empty so left them be. Next spring we'll clean them out thoroughly and put liners in them.
We found some instructions for building bee houses on the net using parchment paper for liners, we made one but I think the bees were finished for the year. The bees really took to the cardboard tubes we bought so I'm hoping they will like the parchment paper liners too.
Google Home Made Mason Bee Liners That Work This is where we found instructions on how to make our own liners and how to construct the box. There are a lot of different ways to build these bee houses, we thought we'd try making our own liners, cheaper that way.
When you put up your houses face them south, we put roofs on to keep them dry.
A......

Novita
For info on Mason Bees try looking at www.knoxcellars.com . You can gather a lot of information. If your still interested in Mason Bees I can send you some in January 09 and you can keep them in the refrigerater. You mentioned where do you put the bees. It is best to have them facing East-Southeast so that they get the rising sun.
Jim

We do have some Mason Bees, but they are on the south side of our barn and I think that they hatch too early when the sun gets warm I suppose we should take their little houses down and put them in the refrigerator until blossom comes on the fruit trees. I missed that part of the lesson on Mason Bees. Thanks for the info.

I try to time putting the Bee's out 3-5 days before my Asian Pears begin to blossom. Prior to removing the Bee tubes from the fridge I will have put the new liners in the Tubes and from that point on it's up to Mother nature. This year she was hard on the Bees but I do have a good Fruit set on my Pears and Apples. The Plums are a lost cause this year and my Peaches are self fertile varieties and are doing well.
Jim