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BeeGAP is a platform that has been developed to help raise awareness around declining bee populations, educate on the importance of bees & pollination and help kiwis encourage & add pollinators to their gardens.

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How safe are leaf-cutter bees in schools!

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How safe are leaf-cutter bees in schools!

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These bees don't sting!!

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Bees are vital pollinators for our fruits, nuts and vegetables. They pollinate 1/3 of our food supply and 1/3 of the feed for our meat sources (ex: beef). Historically, commercial growers have relied primarily on the honey bee.

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Leaf cutter bee at work, in my Grimsby garden in 2016

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We have been lucky to be nominated for the Leaf-cutter Bees in schools Project and Mana New World have donated us a bee house and 75 bees.

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We have been lucky to be nominated for the Leaf-cutter Bees in schools Project and Mana New World have donated us a bee house and 75 bees.

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You can find our Bee house at the back of the Learning Hub. Please read all the information in this Padlet about these special little bees. Or visit the Learning Hub to read more.
They are a gentle solitary bee that does not sting. They are happy getting on with their work and are safe around children.
Help us educate our students and community about these precious pollinators.

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You may never see them but you will definitely know that they have visited by the round holes that they cut in the leaves.  It almost looks like someone has used a paper hole punch on the leaves!

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A cool little video of the leaf-cutter bee in action.

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A cool little video of the leaf-cutter bee in action.

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Some gardeners get very annoyed at leafcutter bees but actually they are absolutely harmless and don’t have a sting like honey bees.  In fact,  as they fly from leaf to leaf, they carry pollen which is the reason that they are a ‘good bug’ for the garden.

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Leafcutter bees are one of the most fascinating insects in the garden. You will probably never see them but you will definitely know that they have visited by the intricate holes that they cut in the leaves. It almost looks like someone has used a paper holepunch on the rose bushes!

Some gardeners get very annoyed at leafcutter bees but actually they are absolutely harmless and don't have a sting like honey bees. In fact, as they fly from leaf to leaf, they carry pollen which is the reason that they are a 'good bug' for the garden. The only damage that they do is cut very neat circles out of the edges of the leaves. It's the perfect shape of the circles that tells you that it was leafcutter bees and not caterpillars; caterpillars are not that neat!

The leafcutter bee clutches the edge of the leaf then uses its powerful jaws to neatly chew around the edge of a circle or crescent of the leaf. When it gets to the end, it flies back to its nest with the piece of leaf held firmly between its legs and it uses this to line the inside of their nests and to weave tiny cradles for their eggs

Take a look at your own roses to see if there are leafcutter bees in your garden and instead of being annoyed at them, think of how amazingly strong they are to be able to fly with large pieces of leaf. Think about it. Could you cut an enormous piece of cardboard with your teeth out of a box that is bigger than you and then carry it back to your bedroom?

This is the Amazonian Leafcutter Bee which is cutting the leaf to take back to line its nest.

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Leafcutter Bee | Smarty Plants - Plants for Kids

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Leafcutter bees are one of the most fascinating insects in the garden. You will probably never see them but you will definitely know that they have visited by the intricate holes that they cut in the leaves. It almost looks like someone has used a paper holepunch on the rose bushes!

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Other Leaf-cutter Bee school's! Their stories.............

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Other Leaf-cutter Bee school's! Their stories.............

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Warepa School - sourced from http://www2.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=11921834

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Papers Past | The Leaf-Cutting Bee. (North Otago Times, 1902-09-03)

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The Leaf-Cutting Bee.A Capital Architect.Probably tho most remarkable of all bees is that known as tho leaf.cutting bee, The leaf-cutter has three...

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Tabs group

Description

Life cycle

Adult leafcutting bees overwinter in individual cells. Mating occurs as soon as the females emerge, after the males.

The females build their own nests and stock them with food. They may make a nest in various kinds of cavities, make a hole in the ground or use a manmade nest.

They make eight to twelve cells per nest, depending on the length of the cavity. The cells, laid end to end, are made with bits of leaves or petals cut up by the bee. When a cell is ready, the bee stocks it with pollen and nectar and lays an egg in it. Once the nest is full, the bee blocks off its entrance. A female may build more than one nest.

Larvae are white when they hatch. Each one has enough food in its cell for its full development. They overwinter in this shelter, in what is called a "prepupal" stage (the final larval development stage). When warmer weather returns, the insect turns into a pupa and then an adult.

Where are they from?

This species was accidentally introduced into North America from Europe. It was caught for the first time in the United States in 1937.

Geographic distribution

Megachile rotundata is a naturalized species that is very well established in Quebec. It is found throughout the province since it is used with various crops.

Consult

Habitat/Diet

Habitat

These leafcutting bees live on farmland but also in urban environments, and even downtown. They can live in environments modified by humans (landfill sites or roadsides).

Diet

Larvae feed on pollen and nectar.

Did you know?

Interesting facts

Alfalfa leafcutting bees are raised commercially on a large scale. They are used in many countries to pollinate alfalfa, a plant with purple flowers grown for its seeds or as fodder. Canada is the world's largest producer and exporter of Megachile rotundata cocoons.

These bees readily nest in easy-to-dismantle nesting boxes set up for them. Most often these consist of a series of corrugated polystyrene panels, forming tunnels where the females can build their nests. This beekeeping system makes it easy to remove the cocoons in the fall.

A female takes about 2.5 hours to make a cell, under suitable conditions, and then about five hours to stock it with food. This means that it takes a total of 7.5 hours per cell on average, and a bee generally makes just one a day.

Ecological roles

These bees are important pollinators in the wild and on farms and in urban environments. They are also a source of food for many animals.

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Description Adult leafcutting bees overwinter in individual cells. Mating occurs as soon as the females emerge, after the males. The females build their own nests and stock them with food. They may make a nest in various kinds of cavities, make a hole in the ground or use a manmade nest.

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Leafcutter bee (Megachile relativa) builds a brood cell August 14, 2010

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I remember as a child finding a small shrub in our wooded backyard with perfectly circular holes cut into the leaves. The leaf had the appearance of Swiss cheese. I remember thinking that the holes were perhaps made by a hungry caterpillar or ant, but the perfectness of the holes was something that I remember to this day.

After learning about leafcutter bees, I believe I may have found the creature who made those holes so long ago.

Since then, I've not seen a leaf with perfect holes like that time in the woods. I'm not sure if this is any comment on the decline in native bee populations, or if perhaps, I just don't do as much looking at leaves now that I'm grown. But either way, I need a walk in the woods.

I've been researching leafcutter bees, as I am excited to be receiving a package of live leafcutter cocoons from Crown Bees at the end of June to live in my BeeWorks Chalet.

I've been learning how to take care of my new pollinators and how I can increase the population around my area.

One of the best ways to ensure the success of each generation of new solitary bees is to take a hands-on approach. While native bees have everything they need to reproduce in the wild, there are some steps that we can do to ensure a higher hatch rate and healthier bees.
Storing your Bees Overwinter
In the fall, October/November the solitary queen is done tucking her brood in with their pollen loaf and nectar in their leafy blanket; the leafcutters will overwinter as a larva. It is now safe to handle the tubes/trays without disturbing the bees.

Remove the cavities filled with leafcutter cells from outdoors, and store in a cool, protected place over the winter.
Harvesting your Leafcutter Bees
Harvest your leafcutter bees in early spring.

Depending on the type of bee house you have, whether it's trays or tubes, you need to carefully open the cavities, remove the leafcutter larva cells, break apart any large sections of connected cells and store the cells in a cool area in a fine mesh bag.

Crown Bees sells their LeafGuardian Cocoon Bag which works perfectly for cocoon storage.
Incubate
About a month before your garden blooms, it's time to incubate your bees. The bees will naturally incubate once the temperatures reach 70 degrees. However, some people like to speed up the process and place their bees in a warm incubator set at 84 degrees. A room with a water heater or something similar will work as well.

In this situation, your first male bee should emerge within 18 days.

On days 9-12 you may begin to see what appear to be tiny gnats emerge from the cells. These are a natural parasite that will re-enter the bee cells to lay eggs. These gnats should be squished.
Placing Outside
After the first bee emerges, it is then safe to open the bag and place outside in your Mason/Leafcutter bee home. The rest of the bees will emerge within 1-2 days.

You can use the same house for mason bees and leafcutter bees. Mason bees will use 8 mm holes, where leafcutter prefer around 6 mm.

To learn more about native, solitary bees, visit Crownbees.com

Also, check out their informative videos:
How to Harvest Leafcutter Bee Cocoons by Crown Bees Incubating Leafcutter Bees by Crown Bees

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Harvesting and Incubating Leafcutter Bees in 4 Easy Steps Keeping Backyard Bees

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I remember as a child finding a small shrub in our wooded backyard with perfectly circular holes cut into the leaves. The leaf had the appearance of Swiss cheese.

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What You'll Find

This is what you'll see as you remove all the contents from your nesting material (a wonderfully big mess!).

Cocoons: Mason bee cocoons look like very fuzzy raisins. Sometimes they are so fuzzy they may look moldy, but don't worry, they're not! Those are just cocoon fibers. The smaller cocoons contain male bees and larger cocoons contain female bees.

You may find other bees' cocoons, great! You have other wild bees living near your garden and they found your nesting tubes. Keep these stored with your mason bees cocoons in the HumidiBee and let them emerge naturally the following year. You can also store these in the BeeGuard Bag in a cool location.

White larva: Some bees and solitary wasps that nest in the summer typically overwinter as big, white larva. They may be in bullet-shaped cocoons with a mud plug or they could be separated by grass or other vegetation. You may find some leftover spider or other insect parts that weren't consumed by the beneficial solitary wasp.

When you find your first larva in the tube, stop opening it up and set it aside for winter storage. You will want to keep them in your garage in a protected container. You will warm them up in late summer for release similar to leafcutter bees. If found in a wood tray, keep them on a paper towel in the storage container. They have consumed all they need and should overwinter just fine.

Mud: Each mason bee cocoon is separated by a mud wall and each tube is capped with a thick mud cap, so you will find a lot of dried mud.

Bee frass: As the larvae eat their pollen loaf, they are also producing waste. The larvae push their waste out of their cocoon as they build it. These tiny dark brown flecks are baby bee poo!

Pollen Loaves: Sometimes an egg isn't laid in a chamber, the egg doesn't hatch, or the larva just didn't need to eat all of its food. The leftover pollen loaves are firm, white to yellow or orange cylinders. If you are brave, eat one of the pollen loaves. You will find the taste relatively sweet due to the nectar inside. (To work at Crown Bees, everyone had to eat at least one...)

Nothing but pollen or mud: Toward the end of a female mason bee's life, she can get a type of dementia. Her instincts tell her to finish holes with mud, or to gather pollen, and sometimes she does just, and only, that. She forgets to lay her eggs and simply caps the tubes.

Other types of bees or wasps: There are over 130 other species of mason bees and many solitary wasps that will use available holes to nest in. Not all bees and wasps use mud. Spring wasps might use pebbles; summer bees might use tree resin, chewed up vegetation and soil, leaf bits, downy parts of plants, etc.

Pests: Harvesting cocoons is the best way to get rid of the following most common and dangerous pests and diseases:

Pollen Mites eat pollen. They hitchhike on the backs of insects to find pollen. Unfortunately, they also hitchhike into nesting holes and eat the mason bee's collected pollen. Pollen mites are found throughout North America; more in moist climates than arid. The pollen mite either eats the egg and then the pollen, or just the pollen and the larva starves. The orange mass is mite feces and the mites themselves are clear and require a magnifier to see them. Luckily, harvesting your cocoons is the best way to discourage pollen mites from spreading to the next generation of bees.

Chalkbrood is a nasty fungus that can devastate your entire colony. Treat this problem with the highest concern. Chalkbrood is a fungus that, if its spores are ingested by a mason bee larva, kills the larva and turns it into a mass of more spores. Emerging mason bees (that weren't harvested) brush past this chalky larva-shaped mass of spores and get the spores on themselves. They can then spread the spores to your mason bee house, flowers, and other nesting holes. Other mason bees will bring the chalkbrood into new holes, allowing the cycle to continue. Two or three years of this cycle can devastate your entire mason bee colony.

Chalkbrood cadavers are chalky and the skin breaks apart easily. A healthy cocoon resembles a fuzzy, plump raisin. Chalkbrood resembles the letter "C" and can range in color from salmon/brown to gray/charcoal in color.

Harvest your mason bee cocoons to minimize exposure of chalkbrood to emerging bees.

Washing cocoons and spot cleaning reusable wood trays with a bleach and water mixture of 1Tbl bleach to 1 cup water kills chalkbrood fungal spores.

Holes in cocoons are a sign of the monodontomerus wasp, or "mono". It is a tiny, black, parasitic wasp that lays its eggs within the developing larva. Mono females typically deposit their eggs through the side of a thin-walled nesting material but have been known to get through ends of wood trays as well. After the bee larva spins its cocoon, the mono wasp larvae eat the bee larvae. Unfortunately, the mono larvae are now nicely encased in a mason bee cocoon, which is tough to discern apart from normal cocoons. The wasps' development time is very short they can chew out through their chamber to attack other uncontaminated larvae elsewhere in your nesting material. The best way to control mono is to inspect your cocoons for holes and to make sure to protect your mason bee nesting materials in a BeeGuard Bag from late spring until fall cocoon harvest.

If you found something else, you can find more detailed information about pests and corresponding control solutions here.

Sort the Cocoons from the Other "Stuff"

Do a quick sort of cocoons from the other items, like mud walls, pollen loaves, and pests. Toss anything that's not a cocoon. Count your cocoons and start planning how many mason bees you'll want for next year. If you have some extra cocoons and would like to receive new nesting materials in exchange for your bees, check out our BeeBuyBack program.

Bee Buy Back

Fill out the form, put your excess cocoons in a box, and mail them to us in exchange for new nesting material or cash!

If you wish to participate in the BeeBuyBack program, don't wash the cocoons you send to us - we'll do it at our facility. No need for the bees taking two baths.

Cleaning

Mason bee cocoons are waterproof and can take a soaking, so we recommend washing the cocoons in cold water and bleach to remove any unwanted dirt and pests that may be stuck to the cocoons.

Bleach wash solution (only if you found chalkbrood!):

Large batches: mix 1 gallon cold water with 1 cup bleach in a large bucket.

Small batches: mix 1 cup cold water with 1 Tbl bleach in a bowl.

Drop the cocoons into the bleach mixture and vigorously stir the cocoons for 1-3 minutes. This will wash off any remaining mud or feces. Some cocoons may sink to the bottom, which usually means the cocoon has been compromised. Inspect the cocoon and toss it if it has a hole.

Using a small container or sieve, move the soaked cocoons to a bowl of fresh, cold water to rinse them off. Swirl the cocoons around for about a minute.

Remove the cocoons from the rinse bath with the sieve and spread them out on towels to dry. If you can, dry the cocoons outside or in a cool place, so the mason bees don't feel warm and think it's already spring!

Before you store your cocoons for hibernation, make sure the cocoons feel dry to the touch. If you can, dry the cocoons outside or in a cool place, so the mason bees don't feel warm and think it's already spring!

If you found chalkbrood in your wood trays, go ahead and use this bleach solution to clean the affected areas of your trays. Simply paint the solution it on the affected areas, re-bind the trays and allow them to dry.

Storage Over Winter

Your cocoons contain fully-formed mason bees that need to hibernate until next spring. The key to a good winter's slumber is cold temperatures to keep the bee from using too much of its stored fats too quickly.

A fridge kept at 34-40°F/1-4°C is a great place to store the cocoons and keep your bees hibernating until flowers start blooming, but:

Cocoons need moisture. Our HumidiBee holds the cocoons and keeps the moisture level at an ideal 60-75% for long-term, winter storage. Modern frost-free refrigerators are very dry inside, and most have a moisture level of 20-30%. This is why we developed the HumidiBee!

It is important to check the HumidiBee monthly to make sure the pad is still moist and see how your cocoons are looking. It may be necessary to add approximately 1-2 teaspoons of water, depending on the refrigerator, every month. If you'd like a reminder to do this, sign up for BeeMail and we'll remind you.

If you keep your refrigerator cooler, your bees will consume their stored fats slower and will last further into spring. Consider keeping your bees very cool if you have late springs. Do not freeze the cocoons. (They survive outside in Michigan just fine, but let's not test this out.)

You may notice your cocoons are growing moldy. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt the bees unless it is really bad. It is likely caused by naturally-occurring mold spores from the food in your fridge (esp. vegetables, fruit, or cheese) and is easily remedied. Simply wash your cocoons in a solution of 1 cup cold water and 1 Tbl of bleach. Also, wash the pads and HumidiBee container in the solution. Let your cocoons dry in a cool area and place them back in the fridge. Consider placing the entire HumidiBee in a paper lunch sack. The spores have more difficulty penetrating the paper. You may have to repeat this process a few times over the winter.

If you're storing your cocoons in a refrigerator that is not used very often, make sure to open it occasionally if you're storing fruits that emit ethylene gas (especially apples). Ethylene gas is a released by ripening fruit and, though harmless to people, can be harmful to the mason bee cocoons. Opening the door occasionally also lets some fresh air in. Your bees will thank you.

Don't want to refrigerate your bees? You can leave your bees in an unheated garage or shed, much like they would be in nature, but the bees will be subjected to temperature variations and may emerge before there are any blossoms, resulting in very hungry bees.

Once the daytime temperatures in your area have reached 55°F/13°C and you have open blossoms, it is time to release your mason bee cocoons.

You can share your cocoons with local friends as tiny ambassadors to spread the word about these gentle bees.

Though tempting, don't send them to faraway geographic regions. The bees aren't suited for different climates. At Crown Bees, we keep our bees sorted by geographic region to ensure they are sent back to the appropriate area.

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Learn how to open nesting materials to harvest and store mason and leafcutter bee cocoons. How to wash mason bee cocoons to remove pollen mites and chalkbrood spores. Videos and photos describe how to harvest bee cocoons from various nesting materials.

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Learn with our step by step guide on how to raise and take care of mason and leafcutter bees. Tips for installing the bee house, setting up nesting holes, placing out cocoons, harvesting and storing cocoons over the winter. Learn what solitary hole-nesting bees need in your yard, garden, or orchard.

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Incubating leafcutter bees by Crown Bees

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How to harvest leafcutter cocoons by Crown Bees

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Releasing Leafcutter Bees - Wisconsin Garden Video Blog 609