Knox Cellars Brings Orchard Mason Bees to the KP and Beyond

Carrie Morlang has a passion for orchard mason bees. It began when she first noticed them in the woodpile during her parents' 49-year stewardship of Gambrel Farms on the Key Peninsula. Then, at just 5 years old, she was given her first raised bed, and with it, her love for both gardening and the friendly little backyard bees took hold.

That interest resurfaced 10 years ago when Morlang purchased her first orchard mason bee shelter at the Kitsap County Fruit Club’s fall meeting. It wasn’t long before her curiosity snowballed into an obsession with the Pacific Northwest’s most effective pollinator.

“They create in me a sense of awe,” she said.

The more she learned, the more committed Morlang became to turn her hobby into something that could provide a focus for her retirement years, as well as environmental stewardship for the KP’s most prolific pollinator.

Three years ago, she purchased and now runs Knox Cellar Mason Bees, a company that sells nesting systems of common phragmite reeds for wood shelters and cocoons to home gardeners and orchardists in the PNW.

Her parents, Maureen and Bruce Morlang, help with preparing and shipping, and with staffing her booths at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show and events around the Kitsap and Key peninsulas.

“Orchard mason bees are here to make your garden better,” Carrie said. “They bring a layer of art to your garden.”

Osmia lignaria propinqua is one of 4,000 native bee species in North America. This Rocky Mountain subspecies uses mud to construct nests in naturally occurring gaps between cracks in stone or other small dark cavities. They are solitary but gregarious, meaning they don’t have a social network like honeybees, but still like to nest near one another. Females build the nests as a series of partitions, with one egg per chamber. They begin by collecting mud and building a back wall for the first partition, then make up to 25 trips visiting as many as 75 flowers to fill their nesting enclosures with enough food to feed the next generation.

Orchard mason bees are the first pollinators to emerge each year and are the workhorses of forests and fruit orchards. Two hundred and fifty female mason bees can pollinate an apple orchard as effectively as 50,000 honeybees, working sunup to sundown, in all but the most inclement weather. They feed on everything from big leaf maples, madrona and berries to alyssum and asters, sunflowers and daisies. Their hairy underside acts like a brush, trapping and transporting large amounts of pollen. Farmers have long known how mason bees increase the size and yield of both commercial crops and backyard gardens. They are also non-lethal to people with allergies to honeybees.

“I call them a ‘recovery bug’ because they are safe for children and pets,” Carrie said.

The mason bee life cycle begins in the spring when temperatures reach 55 degrees for several days in a row. The life span for male mason bees is two to three weeks. They hatch first and forage to put on weight for their procreative contribution. The females get more time to build their strength for the heavy lifting of nest building, egg laying and provisioning. Females live four to eight weeks, with much of that time spent foraging. Once her pollen provision is large enough, each female lays her eggs, one in front of another, females in the back and males near the front. Each has its cavity protected with mud plugs for security and stocked with adequate food to fuel the hatched egg as it goes through the many changes that bring it to maturity. A female can fill four six-inch nesting tubes, each with eight eggs per tube.

By summer, the larval stage mason bee has consumed all its food and begins spinning a cocoon around itself to enter its pupal stage. The flying females die off as summer progresses. By fall or winter, the young bee is a fully developed insect and enters diapause inside its cocoon, feeding off its fat reserves until it becomes the new year’s first emerging pollinator, servicing all the flowering plants within a 150-yard range of the place where it emerges.

“They are fun to garden with,” Maureen said. “Sometimes, I have them resting on my hands.”

The cedar shelters Carrie sells have the added advantage of an observation window to view the laying of eggs, the layering of mud and nutrients, the formation of pupa, the building of the chrysalis, and the launch of a new generation of orchard mason bees.

Carrie regularly gives talks at the KP and Poulsbo Garden Clubs and will be sharing her knowledge at the Key Peninsula Beekeepers meeting March 6 at the Key Center fire station.

“They are a fun and interactive, creative hobby,” she said.