Family Workshop: Pollinator Houses
At the Works Museum, we are starting to get excited for spring. The snow is melting, the days are longer, and the sun is starting to shine! As our yards thaw, they need pollinators to produce the beautiful plants we yearn for the whole winter. Before insects start pollinating, they have a very important job of building a home to lay their eggs. Humans can help insects engineer these homes by building pollinator houses.
On Monday, March 30, 2026, from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., kids and their families can join us at The Works Museum for a Family Workshop, where we will provide all of the materials necessary to engineer one of these important structures.
One Minnesota insect that could benefit from a pollinator house to live in is the mason bee. Mason bees are one of the most impressive pollinators out there - some say mason bees can do the work of 500 honey bees. Less than 10 mason bees can fully pollinate one 15-foot-tall fruit tree. Like many bees, they face the challenge of urbanization destroying their natural habitat.
Mason bees have unique needs for nesting because they are solitary bees. They don’t live in social hives like the honey bee. They build their nests in narrow tube-like openings like hollow stems and burrowed holes in the wood from other insects. Like little engineers, the bees then build multi-chambered nests for their larvae. Within the cavities, they create individual cells filled with pollen and nectar, lay a single egg, and then seal each chamber with mud.
We can help provide space for our engineer friends to build their nests in many ways. The easiest way to help provide habitat for their nests is by leaving your dead plants in the fall all the way until the spring so the bees can use the hollow stems to make nests. Another way we can help is by building pollinator houses.
Join us at the museum on Monday, March 30, 2026, for our Family Workshop: Pollinator Houses! Designed for kids ages 4–10, this hands-on workshop invites kids to design and build a cozy habitat to support these important pollinators, like mason bees. The cost is $15 per child ($12 for members), and adults attend free. We will provide all of the materials needed to help insects like the mason bee by providing a suitable home for the babies that will join us this spring!
After the workshop, families are invited to explore the museum at a special discounted admission rate of $7 per child and adult (members free).
