Mason bees

Are they honey bees Eyren ? Is there something special about them having the same name as one of my grandsons?

No, they're a type of solitary bee - they don't form a colony, each female has her own nest and there are no worker bees foraging for extra food to turn into honey. Like many other insects, the adults die in autumn and the larvae overwinter in their cocoons to form the next generation.

They're called mason bees because they use clay to build the cell walls of their nests, instead of secreting wax.

You could think of them as a more primitive (and smaller) version of the honey bee; the honey bee's ancestors were probably very similar, before they evolved into social insects.