Hi from Paris & Picardie

[solitarybee]

Greetings From France!

My names's Paul, and I am an expat working in Paris with my family's house in the Picardie.  I am into raising and encouraging solitary bees - mainly mason orchard bees and spotting ground bees, and general native bee ecology. I have the same name and a collection of my bees on Youtube.

I very am happy to find this forum as there seems to be a wealth of knowledge on the mason bee subject. I really want to learn about how many people actively raise mason and other solitary bees.

I also have been given a fairly dilapidated honey bee hive box so, once repaired I may be trying my hand at honey bee keeping.

Cheers for now.

[solitarybee]

Yes.. and I forgot to add, if you keep mason bees, would be great to hear from you!

[Natalie]

Hi Paul, welcome to Beemaster!
We are glad to have you here. Sounds like you are already hooked on bees but maybe we can further that obsession by getting you to get more hives.
I bet you get that old hive set up this spring. Just a hunch :-D
Enjoy hanging out here on the forums.

[solitarybee]

Hi Nathalie,

Thanks for the welcome.  Yes I am fascinated by bees.  The honey bee hive box I have will need a fair bit of work done on it to make it hospitable, but yes I agree with your hunch. I will get there and get set up - with a little bit of guidance from people here.

I am hopefully going to see what I also can contribute to the forums in respect of mason bees as it's been nearly five years that I have been involved with building habitats for them, and I am expecting around four hundred of them to emerge from my tunnel habitats next spring.

[Cindi]

Paul, welcome to our forum, so nice that you have found us.  It is great that we are having others that keep bees in so many different parts of the world.  Stick around, we love new members, and we love to listen.  This will be a place where you can tell your stories, tales and experiences, you will also make some new friends.  Have that wonderful day, life, with great health.  Cindi

[solitarybee]

Hi Cindi,
Thanks for your very warm welcome.  I am looking forwards to when I can start to show and tell what I do with my little mason bees, and especially like everyone in a winter climate, looking forward to the spring and all the new and fascinating experiences that being interested in bees offers.
Cheers, Paul.
 

[Kathyp]

welcome.  my husband keeps some mason bees.  good for him and them that they seem not to need to much attention!  i'll look forward to passing on your info about keeping them, to  him.

[solitarybee]

Thanks kathyp
Yes, mason bees don't require a lot of attention in comparison to honey beekeeping. Effectively the ones involved in fruit tree pollination are only active for around ten weeks.  So winter time is a relaxed time - counting cocoons, preparing more blocks, paper tubes and collecting dried plant reeds which can be done in spare time. There are however also those who extend the solitary season by encouraging leaf-cutter bees which last into the summer, and observe ground bees and smaller bees that come later in the summer (if you are that way inclined). The latter can also be 'accommodated' with specific artificial habitats - although I have yet to accomplish this. 
As I have several bee species in my Picardie backyard/garden, I will certainly be hopping around filming them throughout the summer. Perhaps your husband may want to film his bees, and post them online (here?)... or check out my 30 videos ion YTube on my 'solitarybee' channel.
Although all things considered, perhaps you shouldn't tell him about this - these are fascinating critters to hunt down and we wouldn't want his increased enthusiasm for solitary bees becoming a problem for you  ;)