Orchard Mason Bee House

This mason bee house provides high capacity for rapid expansion of your mason bee population while offering maximum protection for your bees. Its cedar roof has eaves with long overhangs on front and sides to reduce rain splash.  The main body of the house is made of ponderosa pine. The ledges on the main body are also recessed for reduced rain splash.  The main body can store over 140 standard 6-inch by 5/16-inch tubes, with over 70 tubes on the top shelf and 70 on the bottom.  You can remove the center shelf to allow even greater capacity.  You can place up to 33 starter bee tubes on the underside of the roof.  This gives a ratio of  starter bee tubes to empty tubes of 140:33, which is just over 4:1.   This closely matches the approximately 4:1 annual reproduction rate of Mason bees. 

 

Most small backyards can get away with 6 starter bee tubes, which means 24 empty tubes is enough for first-year reproduction capacity.  Our mason bee house comes with 24 empty tubes, 48 empty tubes, or 72 empty tubes