Leafcutter bees emerge when temperatures consistently reach 75+ degrees for about two weeks. As solitary bees, each female locates her own nesting hole and independently cares for her offspring, resulting in their non-aggressive and friendly nature. During her 6-8 week lifespan, a female typically lays around 30 eggs. Building her nest involves collecting tiny crescent-shaped leaf cuts or flower petals, which doesn't harm the plants. She transports this material back to her nest, where she chews it until pliable, lining the cavity walls before laying an egg and providing a pollen loaf for her offspring. The leaf chamber is then delicately wrapped, resembling a cozy "sleeping bag" for the developing bee. This meticulous process can take up to four hours per offspring! Unlike mason bees, leafcutters do not form cocoons. Instead, they overwinter in their leaf sleeping bags in the larva stage, emerging as adult bees the following summer.
To learn more, please visit [ Ссылка ]
Videos Mentioned to Watch:
How to Swap Mason Bee Block to Leafcutter Block - [ Ссылка ]
How to Deter Birds - [ Ссылка ]
Watch our Leafcutter Bee Harvest - [ Ссылка ]
Watch leafcutter bees in slow motion - [ Ссылка ]
About Rent Mason Bees:
Our program makes it easy to become a solitary bee host. Gardeners purchase a bee kit that comes with house, nesting block, clay and bees. You release solitary bees into your yard and RENT our nesting blocks for your bees. When you release the bees into your yard they will lay babies in your natural habitat and your nesting block. Harvesting and cleaning the cocoons and blocks is a critical step when hosting solitary bees to remove harmful predators. When you rent from us we take care of the maintenance and cleaning for you. You keep the black house and return the nesting blocks back to us. The following year, you will just need to reorder an “insert” with a sterilized nesting block and clean bees. Please watch our Fall Harvest Video to see how we clean them.
• Our Mason Bee Fall Harvest (why you Rent… we do all the cleaning) - [ Ссылка ]
• Inside a Mason & Leafcutter Block (the importance of why you need to harvest and clean… remove predators) [ Ссылка ]
Mason bees need spring blooms and leafcutter bees need summer blooms. We provide a variety of options to help you become a solitary bee host. Our Mason Bee Starter kits come with a black shelter, nesting block, bag of clay and pollinator seeds. If you would like both spring and summer pollinators, our Pollinator Package comes with spring mason and summer leafcutter bees, two different nesting blocks for both bees, bag of clay for your masons and flower seeds. We send you both bees and you put out the mason block out first in spring and swap the blocks with the leafcutter block in summer. Don’t worry, we’ll notify you and teach you along the way. Here is a video we did about swapping blocks:
"HOW TO SWAP YOUR MASON BEE BLOCK WITH YOUR LEAFCUTTER BEE BLOCK" - [ Ссылка ]
Here is our store link. [ Ссылка ]
