About this time last year we put up some bee houses in the hopes of attracting some Orchard Mason Bees to our cherry trees (see Bee Condos below). There was some immediate success as the native bees did come to nest in the bee houses and I felt the pollination rate of our trees was better than in past years. By mid-summer nearly all the holes in the bee houses were packed with mud, an indication that the mason bees had deposited egg chambers in the holes.

The results this spring have been great. The cherry trees began to blossom last week and at exactly the same time I noticed that all the mud-packed holes in the bee houses had tiny openings in them. Every cherry tree in the yard now has hundreds of mason bees buzzing around from early in the morning to late afternoon when the shadows of the woods behind the barn begin to creep into the yard. The Compact Stella trees are already showing signs of swelling at the base of their blossoms as the petals begin to wilt and blow away in the breeze. The Stark Gold, Emperor Francis and Dwarf North Star trees are about a week behind the Stellas which is fine because there’s still a high probability that we’ll get another frost.

Now if we can just fight off the birds long enough to actually get a harvest….