Bee Harvest Bonanza!

Thanks to our bee stewards for their participation in this year’s Native Bee Project. We have counted our Spring Orchard Mason Bees and the result is very heartening. We seem to be living in an area that is ideal for these native bees, because the reproduction rate has been great.

Our six participants in the project reaped an average of six cocoons per occupied nesting hole, which is superb. Our abundant early blossoming plum and various maple trees provide plenty of their favorite nectar and pollen, and later there are all sorts of sources of food as the early blossoms fade.

We harvested almost 3800 cocoons altogether, and will have the necessary cocoons and credit with our equipment supplier to provide for next year, whatever the number of participants.

~Jim Snell