We want to clarify what needs to happen with your summer bee/leaf cutter bee blocks (if you have them). The summer bee blocks should be placed outside by late May. The holes for the summer bee/leaf cutter bees are 1/4" in diameter and the length of the tube is about 4 inches (smaller than the blue orchard mason bee block). During the summer one egg is laid on the pollen/nectar ball. The egg develops into a larva, then pre-pupa, and then pupa stage by the end of summer or early fall. The over-wintering period - that is, from fall to the next May - is the inactive pupa stage for the bee. The bee will then develop into an adult bee the following year, during May/June.  

If you put out a house and a block for the summer bees, you will want to leave them out during the summer and early fall months. At the end of October/early November, you should take your summer bee blocks inside. You will put your summer bee/leaf cutter bee block inside a paper bag, staple it shut, and leave the block in your unheated garage or storage shed. In late May/early June it will go outside again. There is no harvesting of these cocoons. They stay inside the block until they emerge.

Some of you who attended the mason bee workshops were given incomplete information on what to do until next summer.
 
NOTE:  This information does not apply to the Blue Orchard Mason Bee blocks. Those are put out in mid-March/early April, taken in on June first, and then in late October/early November the cocoons are harvested.