Why I Oughta...

We've had a bee hotel (or Mason Bee House, if you will) for a number of years, but the past two it has been sort-of 'out of service'.  It fell from the its perch and has been laying on the ground.  For 2024, I'm going to push myself to renovate this thing.  It needs a new bottom and some replacement bamboo pieces. Why did I suddenly think of my Bee Hotel?  Because the University of Illinois is (right now...) conducting a " Bee Hotel Project " where they're calling for people to donate their Bee Hotels to science.  Check out the details here and sign-up to donate your Bee Hotel here .  U of I researcher Timo Wayman (an Entomology graduate student at University of Illinois ) is looking to help better understand native bees. I'm not sure our Bee Hotel will be of any value as it has been sitting on the ground for two seasons, but I'm going to fill out the form and see if they'd like to take a look.

This is the third season with our Mason Bee house/hotel in our yard.  I was gifted it for my birthday in April 2018.  Hung it that year and documented the population/residents in May of 2018 when some of the cavities were filled .  That first year, there were 14 tubes filled or packed with mud.  And eggs. I don't seem to have posted about the occupancy rate in 2019, but I'm happy to report that we're seeing a big jump in occupancy for 2020.  At the top of this post, you can see the bee hotel as it stands now.  I went ahead and made it easier on all of us with the annotated version of the photo below.  It shows 36 little red circles that are filled with mud.  I haven't done a scientific analysis, but it seems that the larger bamboo is NOT being used - rather they seem to prefer a mid-sized bamboo piece or hole. But...with 36 sets packed in, that's a more than a 100% increase in occupancy.  Now, there's lots of coverage about the decline...