A Mason Bee Home Will Enhance Garden Production

Consider the mason bee as one of nature's little miracles - busy pollinating your flowers, fruits and vegetables thereby securing the coming years harvest and produce.

Healing Farm raises mason bees on our 18 acre certified organic farm in Saanich, BC. We are pleased to offer mason bees for sale for your garden. Mason bees are ideal whether you have a large commercial garden, orchard, nursery or a backyard plot or a few plants on your patio or balcony. Mason bees are gentle non-aggressive and not known to sting. We offer mason bee cocoons, mason bee houses, and packages containing all you need to get started.

Mason bees are very little upkeep, yet they provide such a valuable service. By adopting your Mason Bee package you are contributing to making our planet a more beautiful place to live.

We offer mason bee cocoons (Osmia lignaria propinqua) in protected durable and re-useable containers in sets of 20 bee cocoons per container. These cocoons are inspected and selected and only the highest quality cocoons are offered for sale. Cocoons are held in a dormant state in a temperature controlled environment until shipped to you. The propinqua subspecies is the naturally-occurring variety west of the Rocky Mountains (another subspecies, lignaria occurs east of the Rocky Mountains).

Our combination mason bee house and nest boxes will provide environmental protection for your bees. The nest boxes provide the ideal mason bees habitat for increasing your mason bee stocks for years to come. Our mason bee houses are available painted or unfinished if you would prefer to decorate it yourself. We offer three mason bee house styles with nest boxes and a free pack of 15 cocoons to get you started.

Please either visit our online store or you may Contact Us.

The following are simple instructions for raising and maintaining your mason bees.

Upon acquiring your cocoons, mason bee house, and mason bee nest box in late winter or early spring:

1. Attach your mason bee house preferably to a wall, post or any other stable fixture that is sheltered and faces south, southeast or east. Insert the mason bee nest box in the house. This should be done in February or March.
2. Observe how spring is advancing. Look for trees and flowers that are ready to bloom or have already bloomed for about 25% of the flowers or trees in your area. Take the cocoons out from your fridge and place them in the container that you have been provided with either in the bee house or near by. You may wish to attach them on the roof of the bee house with some tape. Remove the tape covering the hole of your cocoon container.
3. From this point the mason bees will look after themselves. The male mason bees will soon emerge to be followed in a few days by the females. As the weather warms up you will begin to see them visiting your mason bee nest box and will soon start filling up the chambers with their eggs, bits of honey and mud. Please consider providing them with access to wet clay or soil. They can also acquire this from nearby gardens, potted plants etc.
4. During the period of April to June (depending upon how the spring develops) it will be very active around your mason bee house. If it has been a good year you will see by early summer that your mason bee nest box is nearly full with the chambers plugged with clay or mud. At this point the adult mason bees will disappear because they have died, as their cycle of life has ended.
5. By the end of summer you should remove your mason bee nest box from the mason bee house (leave the house where it is for the coming years) and store your mason bee nest box in a shed or garage with the entrance side up. During this period of dormancy the mason bee eggs have developed into larvae and will have formed cocoons in which they will remain dormant until the following spring.
6. In October through to December take your mason bee nest box apart by removing the electrical tape, duct tape or any other type of tape and splitting the individual boards apart remove the cocoons by using a small blunt instrument such as a flat head screwdriver and place the cocoons in a bucket of lukewarm water. This is to remove any mites that may be on the cocoons and if not removed will attack the baby mason bees and eat them before they have a chance to emerge from their cocoon. The live cocoons will float on the surface and any dead ones will sink to the bottom. Stir the mason bees gently to help remove any mites and then place the mason bee cocoons on either paper towels or similar material and pat and roll them gently to help dry them and to remove any remaining mites.
7. Allow the cocoons to dry at room temperature for 2-3 days (until no longer damp) and then place them in an envelope or some other similar container in your fridge until you wish to place them out again the coming spring.
8. Wash your nest box boards using an old toothbrush to remove any mud or dirt and allow the boards to dry before reassembling them and holding them together with electrical tape or similar types of tape.