The blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria) and the hornfaced bee (Osmia cornifrons) are alternative managed pollinators used in many crops, but we still need to improve our management strategies to be able to implement them at a big scale. To improve their performance as alternative managed pollinators I focused on:

1. Nesting preferences: I evaluated different nesting shelters and nesting substrates to try to find the most attractive combination for bees. At the same time, I tested a recently-developed attractant for mason bees. Read the paper here.

2. Their soil use: I analyzed the texture of the soil that bees bring back to the nest to build the partition between cells. Check out the results here.

3. Pollen preferences: Mason bees are excellent pollinators of tree-crops, but there are doubts about whether they can be used in other crops. I evaluated their pollen preferences in blueberry fields. You can find the results here.