Warmth

We were fooled a little last week that Spring was here.  This morning I woke up to 63 degree weather in my part of the world and the birds singing outside my window.  I know it’s here now.  I rushed outside as soon as I dressed to look at my bee hive and sure enough they have started hatching.

I am trying Mason Bees this year for the first time.  Last year, my honey beekeeper friend took me to a bee seminar sponsored by the Pennsylvania Backyard Beekeepers Association and I learned all about bees.  I learned that Mason Bees are native to this country and that they are even better pollinators that our honey bee friends.  They are a lot less work and don’t produce honey and with my time as small as it is, I decided to go this route.  So I went online and order a nest and house.  It arrived last week and I put the nest outside and today, as I said, I went outside and several of the tubes have been broken through.  These are the males and they will fly around a while and then when the females hatch, mating will occur and then the males will die and the females will spend the next few month laying eggs and then they will die.  It is a short life for the bees, but a productive one.

I will be anxious to see what happens.  I tried to get my husband to hang the nest under the overhang of the roof yesterday but he didn’t.  I told him it has to be done today and now he knows that it does.  If they can’t find the nest then there will be a problem.  But if only a few have hatched and he gets it done today, maybe we will be okay.