North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> After building up a sizable japanese hornfaced bee colony only to have 
> it devoured by barn swallows in a single season I'd like to start over 
> either with hornfaced or blue orchard bees for my fruit trees.


In what part of the country do you live, Seth? I've been trying to raise 
orchard bees for the past couple of years, but I'm having some problems 
with it. Well, the first year, they all came out of their tubes just 
fine in our extremely warm March, but then we had that hard April freeze 
(some bees still survived, but I have no idea how, because there wasn't 
anything blooming here for a long, long time).

Last spring, very few emerged from the tubes. Much later, when I finally 
investigated, it appeared that the bees on the ends had died (I have no 
idea why), and so the other bees couldn't get out. They'd apparently 
tried to chew their way though the sides of the tubes, but none 
succeeded. And of the bees that did colonize new tubes last year, there 
are small holes in most of the plugs of mud at the ends, as if something 
chewed its way inside - whether a predator, a parasite, or a smaller 
bee, I don't know. (Note that this hadn't happened the year before.)

I've got tons of leaf-cutter bees - which *are* much smaller - 
colonizing the tubes (although many of their leaf plugs at the ends were 
also holed, by something, last year). However, they seem to emerge later 
than the orchard bees, too late to pollinate some early blooming fruit 
trees. I don't know if I should be trying to discourage the leaf-cutter 
bees, or not. I'd like to have them around, but I'd rather have orchard 
bees. (And I'm wondering if they are what has lately been chewing 
through the plugs of the early bees.)

At any rate, I don't know anything about hornfaced bees. Are they even 
suited to this climate? But it would be nice to get a variety of 
solitary bees established, if possible.

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it. 
- W. C. Fields