Solitary bees 2009!
It’s official my solitary bees are emerging!
I have just spent the weekend at the old house watching the first few males scanning all the available holes between the bricks for emerging females. Very soon it will probably be like this all over the place:
Solitary bee reproduction
Or worse still (for the ‘what just hit me’ females) like this video that I took in 2007:
I also got a great video of a male carpenter bee voraciously feeding on the nectar of primroses, but as I have left it on the other computer I will have to update and add that video below later.
As far as my boxed bees are concerned, I have left them in the cooler cellar until I am sure that the temperatures are more steady. I don’t want to risk the bees being caught by a late frost/snowfall in weather conditions that could be similar to those of 2008. I did however put three different nesting habitats in place:
- the home-made paper bee straws (with ten starting cocoons) on the window sill above the place where the box normally hangs.
- the hollow stem bundles that I made, and
- the honeycombed commercial solitary bee habitat that I bought last year
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April 3rd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
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April 23rd, 2009 at 4:29 am
I’m currently in southern Maryland in the United States. I’d like to send you some digital photographs of the solitary bees that I’ve seen here. Please send me your email address so that I can send you the pictures if you are interested.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Hi there Raland – have sent you a email. Sorry that I haven’t put my contact details online as yet, however like the bees I am actually quite approachable. It will be great to see your photos and if you want we can post some here.
On that subject I am thinking about ways on here that I can show other people’s experiences with solitary bee populations, so am very happy to receive feedback and ideas. Oh yes, for info my name is Paul.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Hi,
I have a video of a bee entering my bamboo homemade bee nest, does this mean I have been successful in providing a suitable habitat?
What do I do with the bee nests in winter (I live in Devon)
Would you like the video?
Thanks
Andrew.
August 24th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Hi Andrew,
I think that would constitute success yes, so congratulations.
Bamboo is great, and there are some other hollow stem plants that when dried out that you can use such as hogweed (and I have this year quite successfully), even reeds from bullrushes. You can even roll brown paper round 8-10mm wood doweling sealed with mud and they are very grateful. This year I tripled my population using these simple methods.
In winter you can leave them outside, or in a garage but out of the way of excessive exposure to rain/wind to avoid getting them excessively wet or dry. Anyway, even if it freezes, like all insects their ‘blood’ is based on glycol (anti-freeze) so they won’t be killed off. Even if you are up on the moors I don’t think the outdoor temperatures will cause any difficulties.
How many of your bamboo did you find sealed and how did you get into mason bees?
Cheers, Paul.