About Us

At Rent Mason Bees, we don’t just provide bees and supplies. We guide you every step of the way.

As the largest solitary bee provider in the United States, our mission goes far beyond supplying bees for your garden. We're here to teach you the proper care and maintenance your bees need to thrive, because supporting pollinators starts with education.

We’re deeply committed to solitary bee conservation and to raising awareness about the critical role these gentle, efficient pollinators play in our ecosystem. Through hands-on guidance, educational videos, blogs, and public outreach, we empower gardeners and communities to become stewards of these vital species.

And our work doesn’t stop in the garden. We're proud to collaborate with top researchers and bee labs across the country, driving innovative studies to better understand and combat rising threats like the Houdini fly, pollen mites and chalkbrood that endanger solitary bee populations.

Together, we can grow a healthier, more pollinator-friendly world, one bee house at a time.

Thyra McKelvie

Bee Advocate | Educator | National Writer | YouTube Creator| Podcaster

Media, Publications & Speaker Engagements Include: NPR Cultivating Place, Mother Earth News, Fine Gardening Magazine, Northwest Horticultural Society, PolliNation, GardenCenter Magazine, The Relentless Gardener, Ciscoe Morris, Washington State Master Gardeners Educator and regional television programs.

Thyra McKelvie is the Managing Director and Global Solitary Bee Educator at Rent Mason Bees, the largest provider of solitary bees in the United States. A nationally recognized solitary bee advocate and educator, she is passionate about helping people create healthy habitats for pollinators.

Thyra speaks at conferences, garden shows, and community events across the country, trains Master Gardeners, and works with schools, nonprofits, and environmental organizations to inspire pollinator stewardship. She is a contributing writer for national gardening publications, a featured guest on podcasts and television programs, and the creator of the Rent Mason Bees YouTube channel, where she shares educational content about solitary bees and sustainable gardening.

Known for her engaging teaching style and enthusiasm for pollinator conservation, Thyra helps gardeners, growers, and communities understand the critical role solitary bees play in healthy ecosystems and abundant harvests. Through her work, she empowers people to take meaningful action to protect and support native pollinators.

Nina Tran is the Logistics & Shipping Manager and oversees all our shipping, returns and the harvest of millions of mason and leafcutter bees. Prior to Rent Mason Bees, she worked with gardeners at Kent East Hill Nursery to help them create and plant sustainable gardens that would promote healthy ecosystems for fauna and flora. With a B.S. in Environmental Science, she has a deep passion for environmental conservation and believes that working with nature is the key to a sustainable future. Nina looks forward to working with our bee hosts, farmers, and our little solitary bees to make an impact on our growing ecosystems in the years to come.

Jim Watts is the owner of Rent Mason Bees and Watts Solitary Bees. He is a founding member of the Orchard Bee Association, a non-profit which is focused on research and growth of the orchard bee pollination industry and protection of orchard bees. Jim 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.

Craig Watts is located in Portland, Oregon. He has been working with solitary bees for the past twelve years. His focus has been on the propagation of leafcutter and mason bees, and the development of products for the bee industry.

More Than 60 Years of Solitary Bees
Rent Mason Bees began with Roger Watts, a schoolteacher in rural eastern Oregon who started raising leafcutter bees in 1965. He hung nesting boards on barns and sold the bee-filled boards to alfalfa farmers. Demand grew, and his side job eventually became Watts Solitary Bees.
In the 1970s, chalkbrood hit the leafcutter bee industry hard. Roger learned an important lesson that still guides us today: solitary bees need clean nesting materials. The family began removing each year’s brood, cleaning it, controlling parasites and preparing clean nesting materials for the next generation.
Roger’s son Jim Watts grew up doing this work. After studying mathematics at Oregon State University, Jim spent decades propagating leafcutter and mason bees for farms and orchards. Today, he owns Watts Solitary Bees and Rent Mason Bees and is a founding member of the Orchard Bee Association. Watts Solitary Bees works exclusively with farmers and orchards, while Rent Mason Bees brings solitary bee pollination to backyard gardeners and small orchards.
Watts Solitary Bees
From Farms to Backyards
In 2002, the family brought generations of commercial bee-raising experience to backyard gardeners through Rent Mason Bees.
The idea was simple: gardeners could host mason bees, let them pollinate and raise a new generation, then return the nesting blocks to us for harvesting and cleaning.
Release → Pollinate → Return
Those bees can then be released the following spring with another host or sent to a farm or orchard that needs pollinators.
A Family Business
The Watts family continues to be part of the business today. Jim’s cousin Craig manages our mason bees in Oregon, while Jim’s children grew up learning the business from their dad and grandfather.

Hope, a schoolteacher, helped develop our Teach Bees educational materials. Kelton, a developer and 3D designer, invented the Bee Shield™ and is helping build our new website. Evan founded bee-themed Watts Brewing Company in Woodinville, where the family history even inspired the beers and taproom.

And more than 60 years after he started raising solitary bees, Roger is still involved today.

What began on farm fields in Oregon continues in thousands of backyards today, built around the same principle Roger learned decades ago:

Raise healthy bees. Care for the next generation. Give them a clean place to begin.