Daily Archives: November 5, 2011
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| These cocoons were harvested early October just when weather was getting colder and water was condensing on the Quicklock nesting trays. Early enough to avoid fungal growth over cocoons. |
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| These cocoons were harvested in early Nov, after cold weather had settled in. A few cocoons were covered in mold. This mold is easily washed off in cold water and a little bleach. |
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| Quicklock nesting trays with 4 healthy looking cocoons. Cocoons are covered in feces which is easily washed off in cold water. |
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| Quicklock trays with healthy cocoons. The brown and black speckles are bee feces or frass. Frass is easily washed off in cold water. |
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| These are different coloured mason bee mud plugs in Quicklock nesting trays. The black paint is used to help bees orient to their nesting tunnel. |
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| Small cocoons towards the front of the tunnel are usually males. The females are in the back of the nesting tunnel and are larger than the male cocoon. |
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| Sometimes a nesting tunnel consists of a few mud debris. The female either died before she could finish the nest or she became disoriented and found another nesting tunnel for nesting. |
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| Tunnels can be completely full or partly filled. |
Harvesting cocoons from Corn Quicklock trays is fun. You open two pieces of interlocking trays and you see what is inside. Every row tells its own story and often it is a very different from the adjacent nesting tunnel. It is great to see bees at work, but it is very exciting to see what they have produced and to see what other insects are using these nesting tunnels as their home.
This pink larvae has a brown head capsule. It feeds on any detritus and pollen in the tunnel. If left inside over the winter, it can chew through cocoons and destroy your bees. After it has spun its cocoon, it emerges again during the early summer as a moth. I remove these grubs from the nest as I harvest mason bee cocoons.
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| The warmth of the room where we harvested the mason bee cocoons warmed up the larvae and made it active. It was travelling around the tray as I photographed it. In the foreground are two mud walls dividing two cells each containing a male bee cocoon. The female cocoon usually fills the space between the walls of the nesting tunnel. Each cocoon is covered in frass and some mites. |
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| Here is the larvae spinning its web for its overwintering period. |
For the second year in a row, I have had mason bees nesting in these tiny nesting cavities. These tiny cocoons are similar in colour as Osmia lignaria cocoons, but much smaller in size. I have not seen this small bee fly, so I do not know what they look like nor do I know what time of the year they appear. If you have a piece of corrugated plastic, set a piece in amongst your other nest materials and see what happens.
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| Here is the Highrise with nesting trays (without the cedar roof). The gap above the nesting trays is where I insert the folded plastic corrugated material and use it as a wedge to securely hold trays in place. |
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| A folded piece of corrugated plastic acts like a wedge above Highrise nesting trays. Most holes in corrugated plastic are used as nesting tunnels by a species of summer mason bee, as can be seen by the presence of mud plugs.The nesting material below the blue corrugated plastic are the Beediverse Quicklock Corn trays. Here the different coloured mud plugs indicates that mason bees use different sites to collect their mud. |
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| The spring mason bee cocoon is on the left (with its nesting trays on the far left). The tiny summer mason bee cocoon is on the right. |
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| After slicing the nesting tunnel open you can see how the tiny cocoon fits into the tiny nesting tunnel. |
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| Closeup of plastic corrugated sheets filled with mud plugs. |
