The Bees Knees
Honey Bees are great but they aren’t the only bees that are cool.
The masonry bee makes her best in wood and other materials. She will either find a hole of make one. She’s a solitary bee.
She lays her egg in the hole. Then feeds it and creates a store of pollen for it.
Then she seals the hole with a self made clay plug. The larvae will hatch and eat the food left by her before emerging from the hole.
How cool is that?
She may repeat this process to form a series of larvae holes in a tube.
Take it with you:
11 comments on “The Bees Knees”
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Green Lizard's Blog 
Lovely post about a wonderful insect. There’s been so much (rightly) made about the alarming decline in the honey bee population, but our wild bees are also under threat, and we depend on them too for pollination.
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Brilliant!
have you come across butterfly hibernation boxes yet?
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No not yet. Sounds interesting. I’ll look em up.
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I love the solitary bees.
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Me too. They’re unusual.
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Do solitary bees avoid areas with hives, or do you encourage them to come and live close by? I’m trying to identify bees as and when I see them, but never quite fast enough…
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The live everywhere. I think there’s 300 species of wild bee in Europe alone. I started by noticing that they are often either very large like bumble bees or tiny. So unlike the honey bee in size. That’s the easiest way to start spotting them. Will share some resources in a day or two when I get home.
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Are these bees considered a pest in any way?
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No. They aren’t a threat to the structure they build into. They are fairly solitary and it’s a single hole. Bees are generally protected.
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good
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