we have an abundance of them in the Houston/Galveston area. I have no idea what kind but I see them everytime I am in the garden. I want to make an insect house this year, they are really popular in Europe and I have seen some really elaborate ones. Kind of worried it will be mostly roaches living in them here. But the chickens love roaches so it works out.
Tally HO!

I have bees but no houses.

you can order mason bees, they ship them in straws. Make sure you order the ones for your area. I don`t know off hand of a supplier but google should prduce one for you.
Tally HO!

Mara, google insect houses in europe, they are fascinating!

I ordered hornfaced mason bees this past Feb. Had 9 femals nesting in bee house for about a week. Then my lovely wife decides to put sevin dust on the front flower bed cause she THINKS there's bugs on her flowers. One by one I notice the bees are not returning to the nest. After a week all were gone with only half filled tubes. I told her what was happening and she calmly told me about her sevin dust on the front flower bed. I was beside my self, mason bees are not cheap! We had a good little understanding after that conversation. I was really proud of my self that I didn't blow up on her;) there's always next year. I haven't seen any in my back yard yet and have been growing a lot different blueberries for 3 years now. Plus peaches, blackberry, citrus and assortment of veggies. I'm Seabrook tx by redbluff and plenty of woods near by to support native bees. I have seen carpenter, bumble and honey bees but not one mason bee yet. Only time will tell.

There's a house next door that is covered in bee's they are in the roof eaves and crawling all over the southside of the house. No one has lived there for the last several years so i betcha they are probably even in the house. I'm not complaiming.

Blueboy1977, so sorry about the loss of your Mason bees. Most people don't realize how lethal sevin dust is to honey bees and other bees too. It can wipe out a whole hive when honey bees carry it back to the hive on their body.

It used to be touted as very safe to use and years ago I used to dust my dogs with it for fleas. Not anymore. Not good for humans either.

I hope you can get some more Mason bees going.

(Edited for spelling)

This post was edited by roselee on Sun, Apr 7, 13 at 23:46

Is it too late to put a house out? I've got mason bees that frequent my plants.

I think you can put up a house any time of the year. When they find them, they find them! Usually early spring. Once they start nesting they usually stay there untill all holes are filled. There are summer bees that use the houses too so any time is a good time.

I found out about Mason Bees from an email I received from a place called territorialseed.com. I haven't tried them out yet but there's a source of Mason Bees of you're looking for them. I live in Houston and last yr the garden suffered because there were no honey bees around to pollenate the blosoms.

To the comment about the house next door that is coveted with bees, you need to call the city or county about them because they could be the African killer bees ! Honey bees don't usually cover houses. If they are killer bees it won't take much to set them off and it could be deadly for any person or animal they attack.

I was talking to a bee keeper and she says that mostly all honey bees in the south have a certain amount to killer in the hives now. It is the extent that they have been africanized that is the problem. She had one hive that overstepped the bounds but most are cool.