A mason bee emerges as soon as temperatures rise. If you hear a subtle rustling sound at your BeeHome in the warm spring sun, you know that the mason bees are gnawing a hole in their cocoons from the inside and will appear at the entrance of the nesting tube within minutes. If you have had a BeeHome for some time, whose nesting tubes were sealed by mason bees with a clay plug, the mason bees will now open these with their mouthparts.

Males always emerge first

Males emerge a few days before females. They are easy to recognize thanks to their whitish facial hair. After emerging, the males impatiently wait for the first females. They nervously patrol in flight in front of the BeeHome and search for partners in open nesting tubes. Depending on the temperature, it takes three days or even longer for the first females to appear at the nest entrances.

But how do the bees in the cocoon know it's time to leave their nests? In this article, we explain how the bees' internal clock works.

It is essential for wild bees to be able to refuel on nearby flowers. Wildflowers and plants form the livelihood of the industrious pollinators, who with their incredible work keep our ecosystems in balance.

Pollen-laden bellies of mason bees

After mating, the female mason bee looks for her own nesting tube in the BeeHome and diligently flies back and forth between flowers and nest. With a pollen-laden belly, the female lands at her nesting tube and crawls forward into it. Shortly afterwards, she comes out backwards again, turns around, and crawls into the nest with her rear end first. Here she brushes off the pollen she has collected on her floral visits in the furry abdominal hairs, the scopa. Wild bee days are very long. The busiest ones fly off with the first rays of sun and only return to their nesting tube at dusk to sleep. A single female builds up to 30 brood cells in her 4-6 week life and uses several nesting tubes for this. She feeds the larvae with so-called pollen bread, a mixture of pollen and nectar.

The nest-building phase, which lasts several weeks, is particularly exciting and can be wonderfully observed in the discovery drawer of your BeeHome Observer.

Mason bees can determine the sex of their offspring themselves.

On each pollen loaf that the female mason bee has formed from the collected pollen-nectar mix, she lays an egg. A larva hatches from the egg. This develops into a fully grown mason bee in its cocoon by autumn. Female mason bees can determine the sex of their offspring themselves: fertilized eggs become females, unfertilized eggs become males. This is practical for the order of hatching. In the nesting tubes, female mason bees always lay unfertilized eggs at the front, because the males hatch earlier, clearing the way for the females. They always crawl out of their cocoons a few days after the males.

Mud partitions

The mud that the females need to build the mud plug and partitions is found in the surroundings. She then distributes the mud with her mandibles until the hole in the nesting tube of your BeeHome is sealed. In contrast to the nest seal of the horned mason bee, that of the red mason bee is less carefully processed and crumbly instead of smooth.

A female needs several hours for a brood cell with an egg, a collected pollen-nectar supply, and mud partition walls. After the breeding season, the mason bees die within 4-6 weeks in the summer - long before the offspring hatch from their cocoons the following spring.

Over millions of years, insects have also found ways to overcome the great challenges of the cold season and arrive well in spring. Most of them undergo a kind of hibernation – either as an egg, larva, pupa, or as an adult animal. The latter applies to the red and horned mason bees in your BeeHome.

The red and horned mason bees overwinter as adults in their cocoons

Between spring and autumn, the larvae in your BeeHome's nesting tubes have developed into adult wild bees. Many other bees overwinter as pupae or larvae and still need to complete their metamorphosis, while the red and horned mason bees are already pollinating their surroundings.

A natural antifreeze prevents the wild bees from freezing during hibernation

Unlike mammals, insects cannot control their body temperature and are always as warm or cold as the air. To prevent them from freezing, they simply produce a kind of antifreeze in their bodies.

With this trick, some beetles from the Arctic can survive down to -80°C! Your mason bees, of course, also master this and other tricks. Their natural antifreeze prevents them from freezing, which is why they can survive temperatures down to -25°C. In the picture, you can see nine sleeping red mason bees in their cocoons.

Wild bees do not need food during hibernation

During hibernation, your wild bees' metabolism slows down, and they hardly need any food. The low temperatures also help here. The metabolism slows down, and the fat reserves last longer. During hibernation, the bees lose 10 to 15% of their weight! This is also one reason why you should leave your BeeHome outside in winter. In warmth, the metabolism speeds up again, and the animals consume too much energy.

Your wild bees must be in hibernation for at least 90 days

Otherwise, the wild bees cannot start spring fit. However, too much sleep is also not good for them, as they deplete their fat reserves over time. Therefore, the natural time of hatching always depends on the overwintering temperatures and the calendar days. This ensures that the bees do not miss a spring and awaken in time with the first blossoms.