Mason bees aren’t your typical honeybees or bumblebees — they don’t sting, they’re not particularly social, and females make individual nests in tubes. Also, they’re great pollinators.
Problem is, they’re delicate little critters, and what with all this climate change, they can get confused about when to emerge from hibernation and get to pollinating. If they come out during the first warm snap, there won’t be any flowers for them, and they’ll die.
So, beekeepers take their nests and keep them cool until it’s really, truly warm out. How? They keep them in the refrigerator. Fast forward to about 4:35 to get more details:
Here are some more detailed instructions if you want to use your fridge to be a bee savior. Since mason bees don’t sting, you’ve got nothing to lose except some fridge space.
