catherinet, I use a top bar hive, and do nothing at all to 'keep' them. I don't feed them, or fumigate for mites, or handle them at all. In the fall, we move the false back forward to give them a smaller area to heat, then we move the false back again in the spring to give them room to grow. That's all. Oh, we mow a path by the hive so I can walk down there and watch them. They're so interesting. I spent $100 ordering the hive off ebay, and haven't spent a dime since. Feral bees showed up on their own and 'adopted' me. If you want a hands off approach to get pollination and support local bees, set out a top bar hive and see what happens. It's working wonderfully for us, and its so easy and maintenance free. As far as an untended colony being a danger to commercial beekeepers, who are you gonna blame for the feral bees in the woods? Or do you think we should seek out and destroy all bees except the ones that serve man for profit? Bees aren't only for making money. They can exist for their own sake. Or just for enjoyment. My advice is to try it and enjoy. It works for us.

This is a fantastic thread and thank you to all of the contributors! I find mason bees fascinating. I would like to expand my mason bee housing, I only started last year. I have a couple of questions for DIY houses. I think I would like to go the paper tube route. It seems parchment paper seems to work perhaps better than brown paper bag? I have bags but easily can buy a roll of parchment if it fairs better with moisture (pacific north west). Drilling hole size if I used a solid wood block: If I use parchment, do I drill 5/16" still. With paper bag, do I drill 3/8" as the paper takes up space or still go 5/16". I am going to buy a long drill bit (about 16") and use my drill press to get deep holes. Don't really want to buy 2 bits :) . My other option is to rip 5/16" square grooves in 1" think boards and then line with tubes. The tubes will prevent the spread of mites etc between wood layers correct? This is far faster for me (rip the grooves vs. drilling a solid block) and I already have the dado blade and table saw, as well as the wood. Comments and suggestions greatly appreciated!

Letting nature take its course is fine if you are a backyard gardener and doing this for fun. A few words of caution though: If you are given a fish and aquarium and never change the water, your fish die much quicker. The same occurs with an artificial population of mason bees. By providing holes for them to live in, you concentrate pests as well. By doing nothing, you wind up with significantly less mason bees than had you done "something". Please look to our website on background and simple steps you can do to enhance your population. A recent conducted by the ARS/Logan Bee Lab shows that mason bees have a significantly lower mortality rate through keeping a managed temperature over the winter rather than just leaving them exposed to the elements. Yes, some survive, but if you are trying to increase populations for pollination, keep your cocoons in a 39-40 degree environment. The crisper drawer is fine for a small tupperware container of cocoons with a few holes in the lid. lastly, when you leave your holes out through the summer, many of your tubes are partially filled. (probably 1/2 the number of completely filled ones.) Other mason bee species that come out later in the year don't recognize each other and will fill the remaining part of the hole/straw with their young. In the spring, the blue orchard bee will emerge and tunnel through anything in their way. By not changing out straws periodically in the summer, you're unknowingly killing off later in the year bees. (I hope this was clear enough!) We'd like you to be successful in raising mason bees. Please read through a few pages of our website to learn more tips. Thank you, Dave Hunter, Owner Crown Bees Here is a link that might be useful: Crown Bees

Refers to antibacterial soaps and chemicals that supposedly sanitize our hands but in reality kill the good along with the bad, thus leaving us naked without our little familiars or personal good bacteria working for us to combat the bad bacteria. While I appreciate the "Madison Avenue" issues, I'm not quite ready to return to the days when infant/child mortality due to amoebic dysentery, cholera, rheumatic fever, measles, and so on and so on was more than TWENTY TIMES what it is today. In Pennsylvania in 1912, the infant mortality rate (deaths per thousand) was 150. In 2012 it was 8. Both figures - 1912 and 2012 - include ALL deaths, not just those bacteria-borne ones. Nonetheless, "the good ol' days" weren't, and for the most part, are a fantasy no less "fabricated" by a DIFFERENT "Madison Avenue" than the fabrications of the chemo/pharmo shills. Sadly, in a world with such extraordinary access to information, it is harder to find THE TRUTH than it may ever have been in the history of human kind. We must all SEEK, and FIND, our own way in this world full of charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. Precisely why I do not share the infatuation with "all things worm", that some do. The TRUTH I find has been something less than "magic". And while I profoundly appreciate fermented food and drink - with all it's "good" little microbes - I have no illusion that the "good" ones will "win out" over the "bad" ones. They haven't throughout history, I don't know why they should now. What "wins" is a strong immune system, and when that fails, "you" die, regardless of whether you use "anti-microbial" soap or not. Paul