Finally, the solitary-bees are in action
It is the end of a tense period of waiting but at least 5 female bees are buzzing in and out of the box making their cells.
The first tube #43 was sealed a three days ago, then 28, the 8, then 7, then today 1, 31 and 44. This is a relief bearing in mind the difficulty – not just with my imagination – of three successive cold snaps since the start of March when they began to emerge, and the subsequent losses of a significant percentage of the bees. The picture below I took yesterday… Tube one yet to be sealed.
Feeling very positive, I am now wondering whether I should use these numbers for the lottery.
I have reverted back to using my old 35mm camera to try and catch better, sharper pictures of the bees in flight and so have sent off the first roll of film to be developed. Hopefully these images will be online next week.
Tags: bees in flight, female bees
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:02 pm
[...] post-editing). You’ll notice more have been finished in comparison to the first proper day of solitary bee activity, five days [...]
April 29th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
These don’t look like they’d work, with the larvae stacked like that. Do they all hatch.
I’m wondering if a bee-house like that would work for the bees in my yard. The stump they’re nesting in now is fast disintegrating.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Absolutely Lorinda – they have for the last two years and that’s how they exist in the tunnels between the bricks on my house. The cells of these solitary bees are in sequence unlike social honey bees which create their hexagonal honey combs side by side.
I will be putting a page together soon to show how I DIY-ed up my box. I have also created some brown paper straws which I put in opened up long aluminium drinks cans – these are working well also.
Thanks for commenting, hope to see you back here again!