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  • Home
  • What Are Native Pollinators?
  • Why use a BeeFoster nursery?
    • Beestra vs. others
  • Our Products
    • Beestra >
      • Memoirs of a Beestra
      • Install your Beestra
      • Feels like home to a bee
    • Nursery Pods
  • What to Expect
  • BeeFoster Field Guide
    • Release the Bees!
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Contact
  • About Us
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  • Pollinator gallery
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7/6/2020 0 Comments

Flight of the leafcutter bees

Summer is here in southwest MO which means it’s time for leafcutter bees! Leafcutter bees are the hot-weather-loving counterparts to spring’s mason bees. Instead of mud, they cap their tubes with bits of leaves, flowers, and other plant matter. Here on the tree farm, we’ve just started seeing these sweet pollinators move in. They love our perennial native garden, giving us lots of photo ops!

​Leafcutter bees are superb for pollinating summer crops like melons and cucumbers. You may notice their presence by circular holes cut into soft leaves. Unlike your typical mason bee, leafcutter bees can have multiple generations every season. You may notice them emerge in July or early August only to start the cycle anew!


Beestras make a welcome home for all kinds of different native bees. Since they’re all quite gentle, different species are happy to live among one another. While your mason bees will prefer the larger tubes in your nursery, leafcutter bees will reside in the smaller ones, making it easy for them to live in harmony.

​We love the fact that different bees thrive during different parts of the year. Some of our own Beestras that have been collecting dust all spring (metaphorically speaking, of course) have started seeing lots of action in the last couple weeks thanks to leafcutter bees! 

If you see your own leafcutter bees, it’s time to celebrate! Send us pics of pollinators or nursery activity at info@beefoster.com and they might get featured on our website or social media!
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A sweet leafcutter bee loving on some asters in our front yard.
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These aren't your typical mud-capped mason bee nests... this is leafcutter territory! (not that they're territorial... just to be clear)
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Perfectly circular holes... further evidence of leafcutter activity.
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5/26/2020 0 Comments

Sweeter than honey

I hate to be the bearer of bad news... but our nurseries will NOT get you any honey. Better visit the farmer's market if that’s what you’re after. But while you're here... Why aren't we interested in honeybees, anyway?

​Let's be clear about one thing: I love honeybees. I love honey. Without it, I wouldn't be able to make salted honey pie and that's just not ok. But are honeybees really the pollinating super-insects they're cracked up to be? Not really. Not here in North America anyway, where honeybees are not only not native, they could even be considered invasive (here's a fantastic article detailing this).  Using honeybees to pollinate agricultural crops comes with a host of problems including the inevitable spread of disease that happens when you cart bees over hundreds and hundreds of miles. Plus, honeybees can compete with native bees for pollen: we already know that honeybees can be quite aggressive, and native bees are decidedly not. That's where the "invasive" part comes in. Plus, all this talk about pollinators going extinct? Not really true for honeybees. In fact, they're doing just fine compared with the thousands of at-risk pollinator species all over the globe.

The fact is, native bees are much more deserving of our help right now. Habitat loss, worldwide pesticide use, and irresponsible agricultural practices are having devastating effects. And what a shame, because species such as mason bees and bumblebees are way better at pollinating our plants. They use nifty tricks such as vibrating on the flowers to get all the pollen to fall out, and they carry pollen all over their bodies instead on two measly leg-sacks (looking at you, honeybees). Simply put, they're way more efficient, and they are superbly equipped for pollinating many of the crops we depend on. Do you like blueberries and apples and almonds? Thank mason bees for their hard work. Do you enjoy eating beef? Good job leaf-cutter bees! Without you, dear Megachilidae​, we wouldn't have the alfalfa to feed our livestock.

So do we still like honeybees? Sure. But there's more important work to be done right now. So go plant a flower or two, put off mowing another day, and tell your neighbor to stop spraying their peach trees. When you're done with that, treat yourself to some great food: perhaps some Ratatouille full of tomatoes, eggplant, summer squash and peppers; a crisp cucumber and onion side salad; and juicy strawberry shortcake for dessert. And then thank native bees, who made that meal possible. Pretty sweet, huh?
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    Author

    Ames Chiles is a native bee enthusiast from the Ozarks and co-founder of BeeFoster. She studied biology at Missouri State University and followed her passion for learning about our natural world to the west coast. Upon moving back to the area she began to invest her time in land stewardship and sustainable business, eventually starting a company. BeeFoster is a solution to an immediate and pressing issue of a declining bee population. This mission is what steers her path forward and gets her into the garden everyday. Well, that and her dog Bingo Wayne-Gretzky Chiles.

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