Question 1:  <<Why are Mason bees such good pollinators? I have several hives and watch them, but with just a few bees--say 80-100 given my blocks of wood, I don't understand how they seem to be the rave of pollinators.>>

Answer:  Couple things: Remember the best promoters are salesmen, and there is always some hype in that department.... Also there is a political opinion among some that honeybees are bad because they are not native. Concrete evidence that honeybees, in and of themselves, have hurt native bee populations is spotty and inconclusive, but some chose to firmly believe this anyway. I won't get into this argument in detail now, but simply note that in the Americas, Homo sapiens is much more of an invasive species....

   As it now stands, we have both. I think we need to value each pollinator we have. Honeybees are generalists, and they work the entire season. Mason bees are specialists for spring fruit; then they go dormant for the rest of the season. The pollen holding mechanism is different. Both bees have a static charge that helps hold pollen. Mason bees have bristles on their abdomen that specifically catch and hold pollen. These bees drag their abdomens thru the stamens. Honeybees are just generally fuzzy. Every now and then, they stop to groom themselves, which consists of combing out the pollen, combining it with saliva and packing it in pellet form into the pollen baskets on their real legs. Once the pollen is mixed with saliva, it is not available for pollination.

   Many of the honeybees are primarily gathering nectar to go home for winter food reserves; mason bees only need to take a sip for energy for their wings now and then. If honeybees have open brood, then they also will need a lot of pollen (protein for the baby bees), and more of them will deliberately gather pollen. A honeybee that is deliberately gathering pollen is much more efficient at pollination than one that is gathering nectar and only accidently pollinating. They will literally wallow in the stamens.

   You can watch honeybees to see whether they are purposefully gathering pollen or whether they are nectar gatherers. Nectar gatherers will spend more time at the flower, and will extend their tongues to the nectaries. Pollen gatherers will only visit the flower briefly, "doggie paddle" thru the stamens, then move on. Commercial beekeepers who manage bees for pollination purposes will deliberately try to maximize open brood in the hives. Studies have shown that honeybees that are deliberately gathering pollen are around ten times more efficient pollinators than nectar gatherers.

   Mason bees will often work one species of flower for pollen, then stop at another species with a larger nectar supply to get a little energy for their wings. Jumping from one species to another reduces their value as pollinators. But, on spring fruit trees, each mason bee apt to be more efficient than each honeybee. Simply a larger percentage of the mason bees' visits are about deliberate pollen gathering. On the other hand, mason bees are solitary, while honeybees live in colonies of 25 or 30 thousand, who can put out a third to a half of the colony to visit flowers at any time.

Question 2:  <<Also, is it true that they only, generally speaking, will fly about 100 yards from their home and pollinate very, very close to home?>>

   Honeybees have a greater potential range. On cucumbers, squash, and watermelons in commercial pollination, honeybees will pollinate efficiently up to about a kilometer (half mile). On richer nectar sources, such as citrus groves, or apple orchards on that occasional year when the flowers literally drip nectar, honeybees may have a range more like mason bees.