Bees excavating my mortar

[Snoop Puss]

Make a special bee home for them using a loose mix of mortar?

[Nicos]

I think it's going to be impossible to stop them apart from repointing your house.

Thing is , you are inviting them into your garden with all your plants and flowers....personally I'd justput up with them - they must also be doing the same with your neighbour's' walls -do they seem particularly concerned about it?

[Greenleaves]

No problems ? They are digging deep tunnels into my mortar. How can that be good for the house ?

I have provided bee houses for them etc and they still choose the house.

The clue is in the name Marb, Mason Bees

[Snoop Puss]

Marb, I've had a look around on the web for information. Looks like they keep going back repeatedly to the same site, year after year. Not quite sure what you can do. We have them and they don't bother me that much. My impression is they don't burrow very deep into the mortar and they reuse previous holes. If you're worried, you'll have to repoint. Maybe make a replacement kind of sandy mortar in a separate container that you can stand in front of your real wall so that when they start again next year, you've got something already in place for them. Good luck.

[Marb67]

They will still choose my house every time. I have tried to make bee houses for them.

[Greenleaves]

We get them on a south facing wall because it's the warmest I guess, is it your southern elevation that's affected?

[Snoop Puss]

Marb, they'll keep going back to the same spot. Bee houses elsewhere in your garden won't work.

[Jay-ell]

Marb - there are over 200 different species of solitary bee in the UK, each of which has it's own nesting requirements.


Solitary bees are those where a lone female will excavate the nest, prepare the nest, lay the eggs and seal it. Despite being solitary bees, you often get congregation of the nests in one area (after all the conditions in that area are right for all of them).

A lot of the solitary bees will make nests in the ground, you'll notice that bees will be coming and going to a number of tunnel mouths - each mouth is a different nest.

Other solitary bees will nest in trees or other plants - in broken stems, old beetle holes, or nooks and crannies. These are the type that are mainly attracted to bee hotels.


Red Mason Bees get their name because they are bees. They are also a bit gingery. And they nest in the motar of brick walls. They will nest in bee hotels, bramble stems, etc but they do like to nest in the motar. The bees you see flying about are the adults that emerged from the nests in spring from eggs laid last year so really there will be a small opportunity to remotar your walls without entombing them inside - the period between when they emerge and when they start cleaning out old nest sites to lay eggs however if done in early spring after they have emerged then they might relocate and start up a new nest in the bee hotels or in another bit of crumbling motar.

[Marb67]

Well there are loads of them and now burrowing higher up the chimney breast (now too high for me to reach on a ladder) and other house wall seriously undermining the integrity of an already old house that needs pointing. They are also coming into the house, about 10 a day. How they find their way in is a mystery. The bathroom is the worst.

I will have to point all the holes up this year as it's my house or the bees. Sadly I can't afford major repairs to my building so some nests will be lost.

[Jay-ell]

They could be coming in through airbricks which seem to have holes the perfect size for the bees - you could try taping fine mesh over the air bricks so that they still let air through but are too small for the bees

[Marb67]

There are no air bricks on the walls they are burrowing.