Customer Reviews

Pollination with Mason Bees: A Gardener and Naturalists' Guide to Managing Mason Bees for Fruit Production

5 star:		(3)
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3 star:		(2)
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Besides having Mason Bees for several years, I also keep Honey Bees. Mason bees are very easy, very gentle, require no special skills and they are superb pollinators. I suggest mason bees to every gardener who'd like to improve their garden.

I've read quite a few books on mason bees and have tried over the years various techniques, styles of bee blocks, etc., all with limited success. It seems as though by year three you end up with no mason bees no matter how hard you try or what kind of blocks you keep.

Margarite is a scientist and has seemed to figure out the right way to keep mason bees and has developed a new re-usable form of bee blocks that really works. You can buy these blocks from her, or with the included instructions, build them yourself if so inclined. I highly recommend her book and her approach to anyone interested in mason bees.

Not a bad book for a starter into the topic, but it's fairly thin on details, and some of the ideas contained within do run counter to ideas found elsewhere. If you're looking for a basic book on Mason Bees, I'd suggest the one by Brian Griffin instead, which gives a bit more detail while being eminently more readable.

This is a small but succinct book covering all aspects involved with the introduction of Mason Bees to your garden. In addition to outlining the insect's life cycle, the primary value of the book is the short, but adequate steps outlined regarding housing, caring for the cocoons and increasing numbers of the bees through a careful management of their environment. Highly recommended.

I bought this book because it is hard to find information on keeping Mason, or Orchard Bees. With the continued decline in bee populations of all kinds (at least to my eyes here in Spokane, WA) it seems imperative I supplement the surviving population in order to ensure a crop from my backyard fruit trees.
This book said both more and less than I had hoped. The author seems to write English as a second language: the entire text would have been improved by careful editing. She went into considerable detail in how she "harvests" pupae, but did not address any other methods of keeping pupa over the winter, apart from brief mention to keep them cool and reasonably humidified until the following year. What about keeping them outside all winter? She apparently lived on the Pacific Slope (near the Puget Sound/ Inside Passage area) where winters are mild. The winter low temperature in my region can drop to minus 10 Fahrenheit and relative humidity can be equally low.
In short, she raised as many questions as she answered. I'll keep looking.

There really isn't much you need to know about managing mason bees and this book tells it all.