Friday, 2 May 2014
Sharing One's Home with a Bee
I'm pretty sure that this little fellow is a Mortar or Mason Bee. I had rather expected it to be Osmia leaiana, but I have a feeling the antennae are too long.
Mortar bees usually go for the cement layer between the bricks, but I'm wondering if this hole was originally drilled by a human. These small, sun-loving insects are useful pollinators in the garden. They do not have collective nests and they do not deploy worker bees. I understand that females (or some females) have stings but that they are harmless to humans. A Mason Bee nest consists of one chamber with somewhere between six and twelve cells.
The cells are filled with 'bee bread', a mix of nectar and pollen. Eggs are laid, and when they hatch, the larvae feed off the bee bread. They pupate and emerge in May or perhaps June.