Actually, the whole bee, and plenty of them! As I sat on the patio off and on last weekend, I’d see little bees flying around. I paid little attention at first because it’s spring, and I’m not afraid of buzzy things, but when it seemed they were magnetically attracted to my chair, I looked more closely and discovered they were mason bees. Half a dozen of them were flying around the patio, inspecting any vaguely round crevice in search of a place to lay eggs. P had bought a little bee house when he picked up my floor stain at Menard’s, so I went inside and got it, and just set it down beside my little heater. The bees inspected it and flew in and out, but I thought it wasn’t passing muster. Still, I left it there, just in case.

Yesterday, I decided to hang the bee house up on one of the patio roof supports because on the concrete by my feet isn’t exactly prime “beel estate” (god, I’m so punny), I found a place to hang it, so I didn’t even need to go get a nail, then sat back down with my coffee. Within a few minutes, four mason bees were flying around my legs, apparently very confused. I pointed to the house, they ignored me, so I got the house and put it back where it had been. When I did, I noticed that one of the tubes was capped off, so it had to be full of eggs. Bringing the house back seemed to satisfy the bees, so even though they were obviously resourceful enough to find mud…somewhere, I dug some clay soil from the yard and put it in a coffee can lid right in front of the house, just in case they wanted it.

Since I’d seen them inspecting it (along with any hole in any piece of furniture on the patio), just for the hell of it, I checked the screw holes in my little heater that I keep on the patio. One hole was clear, but sure enough, the second hole is now…a bee nest. I guess I won’t be using the heater for a while!