The following is an excerpt from the new bookMason Bee Revolution: How the Hardest Working Bee Can Save the World One Backyard at a Time [4] by Dave Hunter and Jill Lightner (Mountaineers Books, 2016):
Why Keep Gentle Bees?
When people hear “beekeeping,” the image they picture is almost always of honey bee keepers in white, helmeted spacesuits fretting over their hives for hours at a time and purchasing fairly heavy-duty equipment just to get started. But the options for home beekeeping are far more interesting than that image evokes, and many are much, much simpler.
Gentle mason bees will readily crawl on your finger before the sun comes out to warm them up. (Dave Hunter/Crown Bees)
Social vs. Solitary