I did similar last year, but this March London had some really hot days, the ambient air temp rose into the 20s and all the cocoons hatched. In the wrong place. Not much was in flower and I’m sure most of the bees died. Timing with cherry blossom and fgmns is good as there is something to eat. April/May.
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Does anyone else find that the bee boxes become the favoured spot for spiders? Mine are under the eaves of a shed, so spidery anyway, but they seem to love to encase the boxes in dense webs. I don’t know if it’s to do with the bees or if there is current active predation. Or it’s just because I’m watching the boxes and noticing. But it’s a PITA. I clear the webs off every few days but it seems to be the site for “luxury housing with the view over the lake”. Not sure there’s any way around it. I know spiders and wasps etc have to eat too, but still….
Yes definitely! This is a dilemma I'm currently having - I want to clean up my bee houses and put them in the shed over winter but I know spiders are living in them and I feel bad about turfing them out! I'm debating leaving them in, putting the houses away anyway and cleaning them out in spring instead. As I said, only one tube filled so not much in the way of bees to protect.
I’m having dilemmas too. Re temps it might be better just to leave them outside where they are, though it risks a very warm January (!) and they all hatch and die. How much to meddle?
George P says the fridge (with some kind of hydration in the box) is ok for red mason bees but no good for leaf cutters. Airholes, check monthly, keep temp around 40C. I see other sourcing says 'don't use the fridge'. I think I will try it this year.
Well, I have taken the bee boxes inside, and the fridging of the cocoons will not be a problem - as there are none to fridge. A disaster of a year. On one side of the box there were 12 channels with 12 cocoons in each. There are two sides. That 288 cocoons in one box. And all destroyed or not completed. I don't know if some were predated or why the eggs did not develop into larvae. A few channels have wriggling grubs that may be from wasps.
There lots of cleaner mites, and dry frass (poo). You can see dessicated cocoons inside the mud walls that would have been viable at one point. There is a lot of remaining pollen that would have had eggs in, at one point; It was supposed to be eaten by the developing larvae. You can see that some mud cells are in tact and some walls have been demolished. There was a lot of brown, dead pollen and two dessicated leaf-cutter cocoons at the back of the box.
There were a lot of spider nests around the box, so may there was some spider predation. A ready-made buffet for them.
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Living, squirming wasp grubs
This is all a very strong case for having to clear out and clean the box each year. To have left all this for an approaching season would make everything very much more complicated.
It would add that this was all a faff as there are about 24 screws to remove and some are already going rusty, after two seasons. Easier with an electric screw driver.
around 288 dead bees. I guess it's nothing compared a lost colony of honey bees, but I do feel really bad in case it was something I did. It may well have been. Some bees certainly hatched and couldn't get out of the channel.
Having removed the cocoons from my G.Pilkiington nest box and over wintered them in the garage, I returned them to the nest box to hatch but sadly none of them have, not sure what went wrong?
However today I noticed that leaf cutters have used another nest box I hung on a fence a couple of years ago which has been unused until now. Frustratingly they have only used the top holes which I can't access to remove the cocoons..
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However today I noticed that leaf cutters have used another nest box I hung on a fence a couple of years ago which has been unused until now. Frustratingly they have only used the top holes which I can't access to remove the cocoons..