21 responses so far ↓

• 1 Tiffany S. // Jan 28, 2010 at 10:18 am

  You can have Orchard Mason Bees and honeybees within city limits. We have friends in Lake City who have both. OMB’s shouldn’t be any bother to kids or pets but can’t guarantee there won’t be a cranky one.

• 2 nancy // Jan 28, 2010 at 10:42 am

  i’m not an expert but i’ve done a tiny bit of reading and learned there’s a catch with mason bees. they are susceptible to a certain kind of disease. so if your colony gets the disease, you help spread that disease to other colonies. this is a worry to the pros who release their bees for farmers. i don’t think this is a reason not to keep mason bees, but it’s a good idea to do so responsibly.

  i haven’t tried this but there’s this guy who will help people manage their bees, keeping them healthy and such: http://huntersmasonbees.com/index.html

• 3 Winemaker // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:00 am

  The fact that mason bees look slightly larger than an ordinary house fly, a city official probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference even if they were outlawed. We need more bees and mason bees are the quintessential pacific northwest workhorse, pollinating even in the most dreary early spring days. I encourage you to check the internet for more information and visit local hardware/nurseries who will probably stock them soon. We need consistent above 50 degree weather for them to come out and start doing their thing.

• 4 stella // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:09 am

  Mail order a tube of hibernating mason bees and when the weather starts to warm shove the tube into a tree or stump — and voila, you have just helped increase our neighborhood bee population. Easy as 1-2-3

  (here’s a local mason bee seller http://www.knoxcellars.com)

• 5 Palatini // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:38 am

  Check our Seattle Tilth (www.seattletilth.org). They have regular Backyard Beekeeping classes as well as lots of information and programs for a wide array of organic gardening topics. Good luck–I’d love you know neighbors were raising bees in teh neighborhood!

• 6 Sasha // Jan 28, 2010 at 12:40 pm

  http://www.ballardbeecompany.com

  they would know.

  Viva la Bee!

• 7 Dale // Jan 28, 2010 at 12:53 pm

  Besides the Ballard Bee Company, there is also a guy from Wallingford who sells honey at the Phinney Farmer’s Market. I also remember seeing a hive in a guy’s yard on 3rd Avenue NW during a garden tour some years ago.

• 8 cobaltblue // Jan 28, 2010 at 1:01 pm

  We bought our mason bees from Walt’s last year

  http://www.waltsorganic.com/

• 9 Honey'sbee // Jan 28, 2010 at 1:08 pm

  I took a class at the Greenwood library on keeping bees last January and did some apprenticing with an established keeper over last year and will be getting my own hives this year. The City allows you to keep them but you must keep them 25 feet from the property line. I think there are limits to how many hives you can have, also, but I do not know what those are.

  Puget Sound Beekeepers Association (http://www.pugetsoundbees.org/) is a fantastic resource for your newbie beekeeping questions. Also, they rent honey processing equipment at very reasonable rates.

• 10 MonkeyPilot // Jan 28, 2010 at 1:38 pm

  I know of at least one hive in the neighborhood. It’s out in plain sight, but easy to overlook. Very ingenious!

• 11 Jessica Dally // Jan 28, 2010 at 3:38 pm

  Seattle Free School will be posting classes again this summer to learn more about keeping bees in the city. I’m pretty sure that’s the class Honey’s bee went to yes?

  http://www.seattlefreeschool.org

• 12 a neighbor // Jan 28, 2010 at 6:46 pm

  25 feet? Is that true? Because my neighbor has “harmless” bee hives right on the property line that invade our yard. Making our garden very unusable.

• 13 anon // Jan 28, 2010 at 6:47 pm

  Wow, so much good information. You should also talk to Dave at www dot Hunters Mason Bees dot-com. He has lent us a bee box for the flower and garden show, so you can pick up a brocheure and talk to him.

• 14 Fnarf // Jan 28, 2010 at 8:00 pm

  The only spots on our lot that are 25′ from the property line are right down the center line — our lot is 50′. On the roof, I guess; I don’t think they’d enjoy the living room too much.

• 15 Paul // Jan 28, 2010 at 8:30 pm

  Here’s a talk from an early IgniteSeattle delivered by a guy who keeps bees in Wallingford.

  http://blip.tv/file/199597

• 16 Paul // Jan 28, 2010 at 8:35 pm

  His name is Jordan Schwartz and he has a Bee Blog http://hive-mind.com/bee/blog/

• 17 Greenview // Jan 28, 2010 at 10:14 pm

  I spent the summer in Alaska and on the Kenai Peninsula, I actually noticed quite a few houses that had multiple bee hives on their roofs. Just sayin’.

• 18 SunsetSu // Jan 29, 2010 at 12:09 am

  How can having bees come into your yard make it “unusable?” Honey bees, mason bees and bumblebees are all non-aggressive. Raising bees is a socially-useful act. Without bees to fertilize our crops, humans would starve.

• 19 nancy // Jan 29, 2010 at 10:17 am

  one thing to be careful about, apparently, is that mason bees are susceptible to disease. if your bees get it, they can spread it to other bees. apparently this is a concern for the pros who rent their bees out to farmers.

  i’ve never used this guy but he’s got a service that will make sure your bees are in good shape–i believe it’s free, because then he sells excess bees to agriculture users. anyway, sounds interesting.

  http://huntersmasonbees.com/

• 20 Crownhillgardener // Jan 30, 2010 at 8:18 pm

  There is a huge HUGE difference between mason bees and domesticated honey bee hives. You can either buy some mason bees in paper tubes, or you can get a chunk of 4×4, drill a bunch of holes in it and stick it in you flower bed. The mason bees that wake up/ hatch are early in the season, and will lay eggs in some of your holes eventually by June. You could have hundreds of those little tubes full of bees and no one would ever have an issue. Leaving old logs and such to rot also give them homes. Leave your flower beds undisturbed and chances are you’ll get Bumble bees (solitary bees) burrowing into the ground to make a place to live as well.
  Having a domesticated honey hive is 100x different. All those bees are very active, will need a path, etc. and could be noticed by neighbors if not situated correctly. The local bee people can explain - but it’s something like 25 feet on all sides, unless there is a tall solid-ish fence that makes them have to fly upwards before reaching your neighbor’s yard.
  mason bees = no sweat, cheap, fun project for kids to watch as the holes fill in.
  domesticated honey bees = fun hobby, way more intensive, need protective clothing, need to watch for mites, may piss off the neighbors especially if they have kids that are allergic, etc.

• 21 Paulypfunk // Jan 31, 2010 at 10:13 pm

  We have neighbours that have a hive of italian honey bees in their front yard. They have been there for a few years and not one problem. Not one sting and our fruit trees have never looked better.

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