Thanks both, it was exciting. I think I put them out in that box in March but it wasn't until the 20th April they started coming out. I think I realised it had started when I noticed a cocoon with a hole in it. So I kept checking (good old working from home!) and I started being able to hear them crunching through the "shell". I kept waiting then - sometimes they chewed up to ten minutes before emerging. Some hatched weeks apart from others, and not all did hatch.
It's weird because I had so many of them around the garden, and I saw breeding going on, yet I only got 4 filled tubes this year, very disappointing. I normally have loads and this was the first year I had got involved with trying to help them out.
I think if you leave the cocoons right by the nesting cells, the hatching bees will in turn nest right there. They don't like to go far. I put my cocoons back in the base of the nesting box so that the whole thing will hopefully be covered in bee pheromones.
There are some nice vids of people holding a tray of cocoons on one the early very warm and sunny days of the year. The sun falling directly on the tray can help the bees to hatch there and then.
They hatched out about a metre below the bee houses! Maybe a neighbour put a house up that they preferred 😆.
I probably wouldn't have held a hatching cocoon at the start of the year, I was a wimp, but I've come on leaps and bounds with my insect holding this year! I'll even pick up a worm with my bare hands now 😂
I had no leaf cutters nesting this year - the ones from last year didnt hatch either.
Thinking of emptying my mason bee tubes to retrieve the cocoons, and storing them in a cocoon container I purchased from George Pilkingtons website, keeping them in my garage until putting the out around March.
Is there any benefit to just leaving them in their tubes? I guess if one fails to emerge then all those behind it will be stuck and die?
Lucky that my tubes have a combination of leaf cutter and mason bees, is it ok to empty the tubes of leaf cutter bees too?
Yes, I think it's fine to empty both types. And yes, if you take the cocoons out then all the bees can potentially emerge. If one cocoon fails then those behind are stuck in th etube, or if one at the back of the tube emerges much earlier than the front, it also doesn't work.
If taking out the cocoons I would just make sure to keep them somewhere frost-free, cool, dry and out of access from predators like spiders.
Yes, I think it's fine to empty both types. And yes, if you take the cocoons out then all the bees can potentially emerge. If one cocoon fails then those behind are stuck in th etube, or if one at the back of the tube emerges much earlier than the front, it also doesn't work.
If taking out the cocoons I would just make sure to keep them somewhere frost-free, cool, dry and out of access from predators like spiders.
Thanks Fire, it will be one of my jobs for the weekend.
Yes, re George P and others. As the article concludes - we just don't know enough yet about cleaning v not cleaning and the bee bricks studies should give us more to go on. I have both types.
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It's weird because I had so many of them around the garden, and I saw breeding going on, yet I only got 4 filled tubes this year, very disappointing. I normally have loads and this was the first year I had got involved with trying to help them out.
I probably wouldn't have held a hatching cocoon at the start of the year, I was a wimp, but I've come on leaps and bounds with my insect holding this year! I'll even pick up a worm with my bare hands now 😂
I had no leaf cutters nesting this year - the ones from last year didnt hatch either.
Is there any benefit to just leaving them in their tubes? I guess if one fails to emerge then all those behind it will be stuck and die?
Lucky that my tubes have a combination of leaf cutter and mason bees, is it ok to empty the tubes of leaf cutter bees too?