Bee Hotels

12th May, 2025 Bee Soap!

It’s OK... they don’t sting! They only push and shove, grab, grip and tumble, throw each other down and out, and take over the golden goal by brute force if necessary... no, not unruly humans... male Red Mason Bees, emerged from one of our bee hotels and waiting in anticipation


for the golden goal.

The wait is for the females to mature and emerge from their closed off nursery tubes.

They have all been in there through the winter, since laid there as eggs, provisioned with food and a protective ‘door’.

Photo 1. They fly frantically up and down, buzzing back and forth in front of the tubes with females within - still behind closed doors.


The rush and bustle is continuous, from the first moment of warming sun to sunset. All this flight and fight needs to be fuelled with a high-octane fuel – forget-me-nots seem to fit the bill and growing nearby don’t use up valuable energy to find


If bees emerge in coolish weather, they need to warm up in the sun and orient themselves at just the right angle for maximum sun – this male (7 photo’d 9th April) is on the roof of his posh rspb hotel (we nick-name it The Ritz). Note his abdomen is golden brown and furry, a sign of youth!


The important part of the nursery structure is the tubes which turn into a sequence of nurseries – more economical versions can be made with pre-fab cardboard tubes* packed into a cut down drinks bottle to keep out the rain. These are our Ibis Hotels - as popular as the Ritz and the Boutique. I used dried moss to pack them tight into the bottle taper. Home grown hollow fennel stems did not cut the mustard... they remain unused.


I suspect the nursery ‘doors’ of all seven of our hotels are largely constructed of Welsh poppy pollen, as these flowers are much visited when it comes to laying the eggs produced during the present mating (2) phase. Holes made through the various hotel ‘doors’ by emerging bees are clearly visible in 1 and 11.

And this is where the punch-ups begin...


. one male tries to drag another out of the hole he is guarding/using as a lookout. These two ended up tumbling down, recovering flight while still locked in combat.



 Over the other side of the flower bed a pair are mating on the threshold of the oldest ‘hive hexagon’ hotel and a hopeful intruder comes in from bottom left. ... and

 in the drilled wood next door another pair are bombarded. (The hazy line across the images is protective wire netting, out of focus.)

These intruders stopped at nothing, hurling the other males aside, knocking the mating pair off to tumble to the ground. At first, I thought the intruders were another species, but they are in fact aging Red Masons which have worn off their golden fluff. They still have their characteristic white ‘whiskers’ – more clearly visible in 2.

For the Red Mason Bees their life drama is just beginning... and then the Leafcutter Bees will emerge to join the fray...

...episodes of Bee Soap to be continued!

Wildlife Gardening Tips. Forget-me-nots are easy to grow/ pull out after offering early in the year nectar and ground cover in between choice plants. They self-seed prolifically from a few heads left to mature and seedlings pop up early in the year – easy to pull out unwanted ones


 Lots of hoverflies and smaller flies also visit them.

Welsh Poppies also self-seed, orange as well as yellow.

*Tubes for mason bee nurseries need to be 150mm (6 inches) long, 8mm diameter, capped at the rear – birdfood.co.uk C J Wildlife, and others.







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