Hello! It's time for Bees!

I couldn't get enough talking about gardening, so I decided to start this blog!  I'm so excited tonight because I recieved my mason bees today!  Avid little pollinators for my apple trees!  Apparently I was supposed to put them in the fridge, but I didn't know that, so I put them in an insulated box (with an escape hole) under the porch next to the house.  I hope they live!  I am definitely NOT crawling under the porch again.  That was not fun!  Perhaps we also have native mason bees here, that will help create my population.

Here's where I bought my bees from:

http://www.knoxcellars.com/

I got the side-mount start kit, which included a book, a house, and a set of bees.  Docile, non-stinging bees!

I also got the "Humblebee bumblebee" starter kit, because I see so many bumble bees in my garden and I thought it would be fun to have a nest I could peek into.  Hopefully we have the non-aggressive bumble bees here!

The mason bees should be good for early spring and mid-spring pollination, especially for fruit trees.  I believe the bumble bees do good work starting in late spring and on through freezing weather.  Certainly they were wonderful pollinators for my tomatoes.    The book I have says they really like Andromeda.  Good thing I just planted two shrubs this year!

The next big job for my garden is deciding what seeds to buy!  Oh, and crop rotation.  I'll post my plans as soon as I figure them out!