What's so great about Orchard Mason Bees?

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Our native Orchard Mason Bees are fantastic pollinators of spring fruits and flowers. Here are some other traits that make them very special:

  • are called Orchard Mason Bees because they are excellent pollinators of orchard fruits, and use mud like mortar to partition their nesting spaces.
  • are shiny, metallic blue-green and a bit smaller than honey bees (about 1/2” long).
  • have a fuzzy, white face patch and long curved antennae if they're male, and a black face with short, pointed antennae if they're female.
  • are not capable of burrowing their own holes, so they nest in cavities that they find in plant stems and dead wood, or old tree holes created by woodpeckers, beetles or carpenter bees.
  • have a laid-back personality and are classified as solitary (they work alone) but gregarious (they like to nest near each other).
  • are not aggressive at all since they don't have a Queen or honey to defend. Only the females have stingers and they almost never sting.
  • don't make honey. They gather nectar and pollen only as a food source for themselves and their offspring.
  • are very efficient cross-pollinators of spring fruits and plants because they tend to move from tree to tree.
  • have a symbiotic relationship with native plants, which means that they have evolved so their movements actually trigger a plant’s pollination.
  • are such efficient pollinators that it would take more than 100 honey bees to match one female OMB's productivity.

Male emerging from cocoonMale emerging from cocoon

Female with short antennae and black faceFemale with short antennae and black face