you can't fool mother nature

Are you old enough to remember those "it's not nice to fool Mother Nature" ads?

As if anyone wouldn't be able to tell the difference between between butter and margarine... pah!
We did, however, think we could pull one over on a few mason bee cocoons -- here's the story:

If you follow the blog you'll know that we harvested cocoons from nesting tubes at the end of last season and put them in the fridge for the winter (see this post). Admittedly, all the signs of spring have been out there for awhile now.... the daffodils are up, as are the crocuses and garlic, the grass has been cut (twice!) by my guy and we are harvesting regrowth on the kale plants regularly. I knew the bees could go out again soon -- very soon -- but I figured they could wait until my next sunny day off.

Not so.

While looking for greens for a salad the other night, my guy noticed movement in the little plastic containers of cocoons in the crisper. Hatchlings -- several of them -- were crawling around, somewhat confused to have woken up in such a cold environment with no visible source of food close by. Poor things. We let them out immediately, if somewhat unceremoniously.

And today we sat in the sun and watched them buzz around the yard -- our second generation mason bees! Mother Nature must be pleased.