Red mason bees

The red mason bees are nesting in the 'bee hotel' in our back garden for the forth year running.

These tiny little solitary bees will make mud cells and deposit an egg with food for next year. See below a link for one of last years posts.

http://urbanwildlifejottings.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/red-mason-bees-nesting.html

I received another bee hotel last year as a present but it was not used by any bees. So this year I have used my bee mapping process (that I usually work with schools) to chose the best location for the bee hotel based on the bees requirements and connectivity with bee activity in and outside of our garden.

To place it in the chosen location I had to put the box on a post.

That was about a month ago and this year mason bees have started to visit - in fact one tube has been filled with mud cells and already been capped off. 

So I have been really pleased, first to have another active bee hotel and secondly because the mapping process (that I encourage schools to use) indicated a good site.