Host Mason Bees to Help Farmers and Food Production

SEATTLE, Wash., March 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Based in Bothell, Rent Mason Bees, is the only company in the country who has a mason bee program where you "host" mason bees. Their mission is to help the future of food production and promote the health and conservation of mason bees that are critical pollinators to food and ecosystems. They are achieving this through community education, utilizing families and gardeners across the Western United States to host bees and they are teaching farmers how to maintain their crops safely for our pollinators. 

Their program works by finding hosts who want their gardens pollinated. Hosts hang up a mason bee block. At the end of the season, blocks need to be cleaned and put in hibernation over the winter. For those that don't want to do this, Rent Mason Bees steps in. Hosts mail their nesting blocks full of eggs back to Rent Mason Bees and they harvest, clean the cocoons to rid them of mites and diseases and store them safely in hibernation over the winter. Then, the next Spring, healthy mason bee cocoons are sent to farmers all over the West Coast to pollinate crops. Farmers love Mason Bees because they pollinate 95% of the flowers they land on because they belly flop onto the flower and get pollen all over their bodies. The results are: your garden gets pollinated, healthy bees are put back out into the ecosystem and farmers produce more food

BEE AMAZED:

• Mason bees can visit over 2,000 flowers a day.
• It only takes 400 female mason bees to do the work of 40,000 honeybees
• They co-exist with honeybees to help with the workload.
• Mason Bees don't sting and are non-aggressive and safe around children.
• They are solitary bees. They work by themselves, find their own food, build their own nest and lay eggs

To learn more, visit https://www.rentmasonbees.com/

About Rent Mason Bees: Based out of Bothell, WA, Rent Mason Bees owner, Jim Watts, grew up around bees working with his dad in the family bee business. His passion led him to start his own business operating now for over 25 years. His expertise includes commercial pollination with solitary bees, propagating native bees and helping local gardeners with their pollination needs.

SOURCE Rent Mason Bees