With the recent days being warmer than usual the unprocessed solitary bees in my garage emerged. These are the first homes I built for them out of 2x4 wood pieces. I cannot open them without harming the cocoons so I left them as is.
I've been watching the temperature for the last week carefully as if it gets over 55f for a few days it will cause the Bees to emerge. And since that happened being it's the end of winter here in North Georgia I had bees leaving their mud homes to come over and explore the world.
I keep a thermometer in my garage so I will know if it gets too warm. Which it did. So i went over to my bee box holding the 2x4 homes and opened it up.
There were three Bees already roaming around the top of the home. And I could not leave them in this plastic box for long once they emerge.
As soon as I brought the box around to where my new bee boards are one of the Bees got to the edge of the plastic container and was checking out its surroundings.
I took the 2x4 bee homes out of the plastic container and placed them next to the bee boards. So far only males have emerged but that's normal, I hear they emerge first and then help the females out of their cocoons when they emerge too. Then the females do all the work building the homes, the males are just there for a week or two to reproduce with the females.
It was getting late by the time I got them placed by the new homes and had to use a flash light. It was distracting them and I had to be careful as they use light to orient themselves.
I saw one just starting to emerge from one of the many holes in the 2x4 home. It was just sitting there for a while and then eventually came out.
So far they look healthy. I did not see any mites on them yet. Though I need to see the full population before i can tell if they have any parasites on them. That's why I like to process them so I can remove mites before they emerge. These 2x4 bee homes cannot be cleaned or processed. So as long as my Bees take to the bee boards ill dispose of those old 2x4 homes.
They were just hanging out, I think it takes a day or two before they can fly. And also it got cold the next day, maybe they are staying close to home so they can crawl back into the holes or something like that.
So my future plans are to release the processed Mason Bees on Sunday. Its suppose to be back into the 60s by then. There is rain in the forecast but luckily their homes are protected from the rain.
It's a little too cold for the next few days to release them now. Hope the little male bees will be okay on their own until Sunday.
I brought over the Bee resting on the plastic containers edge over to the rest of the Bees. Using stick I offered a ride, which the Bee right away climbed on and I brought it over to the home. The Bee was quickly greeted by the others.
Looking forward to the next few days when I release hundreds of cocoons. Hoping my processing was done right, we shall know soon enough.
