winding down

ran into a depressing sight when i visited the bee houses this morning...the unmistakeable sign the mason bee season is slowing...two dead girls...

there are still busy girls out there...only fewer...and they seem to be in a hurry...working even harder...time is short and dna is relentless in its demand to be reproduced...it needs to carry on in a new generation...soon it will be time to take the houses down...put them in parasite proof mesh bags...and store them away in the shed until next march when i hang them out again for another cycle...

the end of the season is always a letdown...no more buzz...still...we had a pretty good season...last count was over three hundred sealed tubes and when i do the final inventory in a few days i am wagering there will be more...the last couple of leaf cutter seasons have been disasters...stillborn...none of them hatched last year and not many the year before that...hoping they take after the masons come june.