Solitary Bee Blog

The wind dropped and at one point in the sunlight it was 20°C, but not for long. The solitary bees were seen around the box and the wall, and I noted three different tubes being explored - although no cells appear yet. One of the active bees that has been around for the sunny moments I saw with pollen all over her underside. Until now I had wondered how they kept hold of what they had gathered in flight, not having the ‘leg pouches’ as honey bees are seen to possess.

Yesterday, despite the focus of the post being on Carpenter Bees, one more female had emerged from the cake dome cocoons (which I now will refer to lightly as the incubator). Today two more females emerged - one struggling to get out of the cocoon - and a male emerged. A female and a male flew off. I managed to catch the female as she evacuated and took off. These moments are good.

On the downside, one male was also discovered dead with only its tuft out. I had started to become worried that the remaining cocoons were all dead - I believe my panicked removal of them after the frost I believed may have culled a few. I think overall I may have handled the frost problem badly. Next year I will know better. I may lose up to about a third I think, which is not good, in fact it is terrible. Last year I was reminded that I had not emptied all the tubes out, only pulled out cocoons that had been there while when all the rest had left. It is a horrible learning curve.