I had great fun meeting Steve, ‘The Bee Guy’ Scanlan. I’m a member of Food First Chemainus, and he has been a guest of ours a few times. I met Steve for coffee at the Willow Street Café in Chemainus for a chat about bees.
Steve is so enamoured with mason bees that he and his wife, Catherine, wrote a book as a guide for those of us wanting to “keep” these wondrous creatures. He said his enthusiasm for mason bees came from Eugene Fleck.
Steve met Eugene, a mason bee lover, about seven years ago and has been smitten with these creatures since. When Eugene passed away, Steve and Catherine took up his mission and continue to educate and spread the word about mason bees here in the Cowichan Valley.
Besides his passion for bees, Steve is a writer of stories. I found the conversation with this retired man full of interests. A husband of many years, a father of three daughters and a new grandfather, he is also a student at Vancouver Island University in creative writing and writes every day for pleasure. Steve gives fun, energetic lectures about mason bees for all kinds of groups, and he has just published a book about self-publishing. It was a fun and interesting conversation over a cup of tea — and bees!
And so Steve told me the story of the mason bee...
Mason bees have a short life — only one to two weeks for males, and six to eight weeks for females. In that short span, mason bees can improve yields of fruit trees, spring flowers and vegetables by three to six times. As a lifetime gardener, that has me very interested. Three times the yield is an incredible claim!
The way the mason bee is designed creates the conditions for great early pollination.
“A mason bee looks like a big, fat fly,” Steve told me. “In this Pacific coastal region, they’re usually dark blue. They are very, very fast fliers. They’re looking for holes to live in. They have a stinger, but they don’t use it.”
Mason bees are very common in this area but are often mistaken for houseflies.
Unlike honey bees, who have a hive way of life, mason bees are solitary and build their nests in tunnels, creating a separate mud-walled chamber for each egg — just like a bricklayer, or mason, would.
The male mates as many times as he can and then dies — usually after one to two weeks. Forty-eight hours after mating, a female lays two to four eggs a day. She chooses the sex of each egg by deciding whether or not to fertilize it — fertilized eggs become females, while unfertilized ones become males. She lays more females to ensure abundant reproduction next spring.
One female will visit as many as 225 blooms to feed each egg, pollinating hundreds of flowers in just a few short weeks.
Mason bees are very busy indeed. They are some of the best pollinators, especially in early spring. This definitely helps create ideal conditions to improve yields, particularly for fruit trees.
A key thing to know is that these are early bees. They begin coming out of their homes as soon as the weather reaches 15 C for three consecutive days. This is usually mid-March on the West Coast. They live a maximum of eight weeks, so it’s the fruit trees and spring blooms that benefit most from these little pollinators.
We can encourage the bees to take up residence in our yards by providing the conditions for a good house. There are several types of mason bee houses people can buy. Steve designs and builds his own. The bees will also use what’s available in your yard — old logs, lumber, reeds. They’re looking for a clean, dry quarter-inch hole in which to lay eggs, leave pollen to feed the developing larva, and build a mud wall. The female repeats this process until the hole is full. Providing a good house means the mason bee can spend more time laying eggs and pollinating.
I highly recommend Steve and Catherine’s book The Incredible Mason Bee. It’s succinct and a great reference guide to add to your collection. Steve sells the book, as well as bee houses, bees and supplies, at Catherine’s shop on Willow Street in Chemainus — The Blue Orchid/Magpies. Drop by and chat with either Steve or Catherine. They can help you begin to keep these beautiful pollinators.
To set up a mason bee presentation, contact Steve through his website. You won’t be disappointed!
Tesa Cournoyer is a member of Food First Chemainus.
