# Mason bees vs. honeybees?



## Betho (Dec 27, 2006)

I live on a property that has about 20 fruit trees, 80 feet or so of blackberries, bazillions of wild huckleberries, and of course I'm putting in a large vegetable garden as well. I just moved here and the landlord said there are no more bees here so fruit (and wild berry) production has been very low the last several years. 

My brother was going to set up a hive here for me, he's learning honeybees but he just lives too far away to be able to reasonably do the hive. He did offer to teach me how to do it if I wanted to get started.

So here's my question. It would be worth it to me in terms of time spent to get them, if ANYTHING just for the pollination aspect. 20 fruit trees is a lot of food for us, the chickens and my extended family! But I was also thinking about mason bees, simply because I have a lot of projects this spring and during the summer, plus I expect to hopefully be expecting (lol) which means I will have pretty low energy. So in terms of time and also finances, I'm trying to find the best option.

I can't find ANY information about how far mason bees will range and most especially, how many to buy that will equal one hive. I mean, people buy the little houses but I can't just buy one house for all 20 trees, right? Would I need a house per tree? 

I do like the idea of having honey and wax, since we use a lot of honey and I pay $14/quart for it now, but at the same time I don't want to overextend myself. I think, though, if the financial investment to provide the pollinators I need is even close I will go with the honeybees just because they will pay for themselves doubly when you combine the pollination AND the honey & wax. My brother said once you have a hive set up they really only need about an hour a week maintenance. On the other hand, the mason bees take no maintenance but only provide pollination.

Thoughts?


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## BjornBee (Jan 17, 2011)

Betho,
A few things about mason bees...

Their home range is no more than about 200 yards.

They mainly come out during the time period of apple and fruit tree bloosoms.

They are very sensitive to pesticides.

They need proper housing, fruit tree or other early flowers, mud, and a pesticide free area. If they do not have these requirements, you will not get them to propogate and thrive from year to year. They will move on to other areas.

They only live about 6 weeks. Making them useless for later season pollination fruits and vegetables.

If you going to have a garden and a full range of pollination needs, I would have both a bee hive and also get one or two mason bee units. (You do not need one for each tree). Just as long as the fruit trees are within a reasonable distance of the mason bee homes, they will do the job. Masons are considered super pollinators and 250 female mason bees will adequately pollinate an acre of trees.

Here is a page from my website. I can't help with mason bees this year, but some of the information might be useful.

http://www.bjornapiaries.com/masonbees.html

Hope this helps.


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