I'm a couple weeks late setting out my cocoons this year. This is my second season with them and the first season with my own cocoons. Wasn't sure how they would do here in my climate as I had to put them in the fridge around July. The suspense was killing me so when I pulled them out of the fridge I had to open a cocoon just to see, then another, and another, and another........ Ended up opening all two of my male cocoons and about 5 females. I'm hoping I didn't disturb them too much by not letting them come out on there own?! I still have about 20 females that haven't hatched yet and don't think I have enough males to go around so I ordered 20 more today. Of those 20, 12 will be males so there should be enough "Randy" males to satisfy the females. I'm hoping they multiply this year! Last year my wife killed all my bees half way through my flower cycle on the blueberries by dusting the whole front flower bed with seven dust when I was at work. I started to notice the bees were going MIA one by one. After a week they were gone and got to telling my wife about it. That's when she told me,"last week I saw some aphids on the flowers and dusted every thing with seven dust, do you think that would kill them". :/ We had to have a little talk at that point!

Hmmm time to get the wife some ladybugs.... I usually put out pray mantises... love them was going to built some bee house this year..

I am going to have to pay closer attention this year. We have all sorts of little bees around here (very few A. mellifera). I am thinking we might benefit form putting out mason bee houses, too.

This is going to be my third year with mason bees. I started with about 20 4-inch tubes my friend gave me. They multiplied fast! I have now over 300 6-inch tubes. I am in position that I have too many for mylf. I am going to give a lot away. By the way, I roll my own tubes. The 6-inch tubes hold more females than 4-inch ones. I did not put them in fridge. They stay in my garage the whole time before I take them out in April.

Too bad they don't ship across borders. I would sign up.

Blueboy,

Do you have the southern blueberry bee there?  They look like a very small bumble bee with a white mark on the face.

I have not seen them here at all! Ive seen the map that says they should be here but none have showed up. I live in a pretty developed area. There are patches of woods all around but none seem to be holding the blueberry bees. I think our gumbo clay soil around here stays to wet for them. Don't know for sure but its just a hunch. Got plenty feral honey bees, a few bumble bees here and there and too many carpenter bees. I like taking tennis rackets to the carpenter bees. Those suckers can go a mile when hit just right! The cut into the base of the flowers and rob nectar and then the honey bees catch on and do the same thing. My mason bees don't seem to be after the pollen on my blues very much but I do see them getting nectar. I believe the mason bees are mainly getting pollen from butter cup flowers in the field behind the house. I see them stop and get a drink on the blueberry flowers then go out to the field and come back with a yellow ball of pollen on there belly.

Whats the best way to get into raising mason bee's?  Any recommended sources?

Go to crownbees.com

Once you get it going, they will multiply themselves from year to year. The key is to use clean tubes every year. You don't have to buy tubes; you can make your own. I can get 2 tubes out of one piece of 8x11 used computer paper. Cut the paper into 5.5x6 and roll along the long side with a 5/16 inch diameter dowel. This will give you a solid 6-in long tubes.

Good info. I bought a bunch of cheap scrap cuts from Homedepot this fall to make some mason bee lodges during the winter. Haven't gotten around to it yet. The Wholefoods near here used to use paper straws in their drinks, which I hated because they always got soggy; but then when I started doing research on Mason bees I was excited to have a use for them. Turned out they quit using them,  I do like the idea of rolling your own tubes with used paper on a dowel, thanks willwall!

Last summer I really tried to take notice of all the native bees around here. I don't know that I saw any Mason bees, possibly one but it would have been a late summer variety. Mostly leaf cutters, squash, and many tiny bees of different varieties, luckily the leave cutters love the flowers but do minimal damage to my blueberries and roses. We also have miner bees which like the lava rock in the front of the house, but funny thing is I have never seen one on any of my flowers. I would like to build a bumblebee nest box sometime too.

Hi Blueboy, I just finished my first full cycle last year with my mason bees. It's just fun watching them come in with all the pollen stuck on themselves.  Below are some video's I made last spring.  Enjoy.

Nice videos Sammy. I can hear your little helper in there as well. My boys love to just sit there for hours and watch the bees do there thing. We have even gone as far as getting the lawn chairs set right in front of the bee condo with cold drinks! Its good stuff, keep it up!

I wish I had the bb bee here! The honey bees are responsible for most of my pollination but they sure are lazy and only like perfect weather. I would like to get a few bumble bee hives started as well but with 2 young boys around the back yard its going to be hard to convince my wife on that one. I think they can get pretty aggresive if agitated right?

Yeah I know what you mean, the bumble bees are always out and about when the honey bees are relaxing at home. 
Maybe you could put the bumble bee nest out of the way so they won't get disturbed.

Saw a story the other day reporting the belief that diseases afflicting A. mellifera were crossing over to bumblebees.

I just grab interesting pieces of wood from the wood pile and drill 5/16 holes 5 to 10 inches deep. I attach to anything so they aren't on the ground and I bend a small section of welded wire (say inch by 1/2 inch) so the birds can't pull them out. I don't line with paper tubes but once the nests look used I throw back on the wood pile and do it all over. I can easily make 12 in an hour and 1/2 or less and mine look very natural and I worry less about spreading anything. And they are cheap.
In Virginia we have a huge number of "alternative" pollinators -- I've heard numbers as high as 85% and if you plant for the "good' bugs gardening seems more interesting.
I have never had problems attracting Mason bees. Once you start looking for other helpers you'll be amazed at how manys things are working your plants.

A while back, I bought a few (Mason Bee) starter tubes from the internet.
I had them on my deck and they were fun to just watch - not to mention the good pollination they did.
They flourished and multiplied for ~2-3 years. I winter stored them in my unheated garage.
Suddenly, some parasite critter (a little wasp?) attacked them; and sadly I no longer have them now.

I think I had some type of leaf cutter bee in mine as evidenced by the crescent cuts left in my cacao plants and others in my garden.  Oh well, they didn't take all the leaves.

That wasp you speak of is tiny!!! When I orderd my tubes last year they there was one cocoon that didnt want to open. I left it for 4 days after all the other ones hatched and decided to have a peak. When I opened the cocoon there were probably 40-50 little grub looking things and turns out those were the predatory wasp larva. Im glad I checked it because they would have ruined what bees I have. I hope this is the year for my bees to get established here.