Your Garden's Super Pollinators!

Summer Bees! They’re the tiny superheroes of your garden, barely bigger than a watermelon seed. Just like their buddies, the mason bees, they’re experts at gathering loose pollen with their special belly hairs, known as scopa. With this awesome skill, they can pollinate an incredible 95% of the plants they visit!

And because they’re so tiny and agile, they can dart around to even the smallest flowers! That means every single bloom gets a visit, helping them produce more food for a magnificent harvest. Leafcutter bees are like the garden’s secret helpers, making sure we have a bounty of delicious fruits and veggies to enjoy!

Depending on when you received your bees and where you live will determine how long it will take for your leafcutters to emerge. One of the big differences between mason and leafcutter bees is their life cycle. When we send you your bees, leafcutters arrive in their larvae state, whereas, mason bees are fully grown in their cocoons. We send you a leafcutter nesting block with 3 rows of the block full of 60+ leafcutter bees snug in their leaf sleeping bags for safe and easy transport. Since your leafcutters arrive in their larvae state, it usually takes them about 4-6 weeks to grow into a fully developed adult bee and they can only do this when temperatures are a consistent 70+ degrees.

Once they emerge, they live for about 6-8 weeks pollinating and laying their eggs. Sometimes you can get two life cycles of leafcutter bees if the temperatures stay consistently hot for the new babies to grow.

So, when the weather warms up, keep an eye open for little bees flying around with tiny pieces of leaves and marvel at their hard work and mastery of making their nests.