Technical Abstract: The blue orchard bee, Osmia lignaria Say, is a promising alternative pollinator for some fruit trees. Commercial O. lignaria populations can be sustained in agricultural settings and have been known to increase fruit yield by two-fold or more each year. However, some females fail to establish at the provided nesting sites, which may be attributable to pre-nesting dispersal. Dispersal has been repeatedly found to increase when O. lignaria populations were placed in orchards as loose cocoons (extricated from their nests), which subjects pre-emergent bees to excessive handling. In this study, we addressed the hypothesis that excessive or rough handling of pre-emergent adult blue orchard bees results in a decreased number of females that establish nests at the site from which they emerged. We tested this hypothesis by severely shaking bees (as a proxy for rough handling) and subsequently monitoring nest establishment of shaken bees, as well as of unshaken bees. There was no significant difference in the number of shaken and unshaken females that nested. Results show that rough handling does not discourage nest establishment. These results are useful to O. lignaria mass producers who desire to control pathogens and parasites by removing healthy bees in their cocoons from their nests for winter storage.