Читать книгу Beekeeping For Dummies - Howland Blackiston - Страница 72

A bit similar in appearance to honey bees, the mason bee is a very important contributor to effective pollination. Unlike honey bees or bumble bees, mason bees are solitary, meaning there is no queen bee, and every female is fertile, making her own nest. Mason bees produce neither honey nor beeswax. In the wild, they build their mud-sealed nests in natural tubes like reeds or holes in dead trees. There has been a considerable insurgence of interest in these lovely insects, and commercially manufactured nests are available to house mason bees for the pollination of gardens and orchards (see Figure 2-17). Although mason bees do have stingers, they are very gentle. Even if you do get stung, it is more like a mosquito bite than a painful bee, wasp, or hornet sting.