Solitary Bees

Went back last weekend to the countryside (to earn my daily bread I have to live and work in the city). Having seen signs of a few male solitary bees scanning the bricks the previous weekend, I wanted to see what new happenings there were in solitary bee land. I wasn’t disappointed.

On the Saturday it was 13°C at most but I caught sight of a very small Osmia cornuta that had emerged from one of my paper tubes of last year.  It flew off just after I stopped filming it (shame) so I missed capturing it’s first flight.  I also saw a male bee that had ventured out of its tunnel to the brick’s edge, and then it turned towards my camera. In the blink of an eye he was gone, then thirty seconds later he had flown back and into his tunnel into deciding it was too cold.  I got a cute shot of him looking out of the hole where he had come from.

Male Osmia cornuta peeking out of his hole feeling the cold!

I saw another solitary bee male who’d decided that he’d best keep his nose warm!

This bee wanted to wait it out with his nose in the 'warm'

Here’s a video summarising Saturday’s solitary bee activities:

On Sunday the bricks were bathed in the suns rays and activity began in earnest.  It was marked by several great discoveries – up to 4 species that I had not fully seen before, plus a beautiful butterfly.   In summary:

• On the bricks I had at any one time  up to 5 male Osmia cornutas scanning the bricks for females,
• Two females making nests – one I realised was excavating her tunnel (see video below)

• A darker bodied bee (possibly Osmia Rufa) twice appearing to scan the bricks (could there be more?)
• In the back garden at least two female bees making mud balls and flying off over the barn in the direction of the bricks,
• An unidentified bee-like fly – very fast with a long probiscus and quite shy – hovering on the primroses,
• A big bumble bee disappearing into a hole in the ground at the foot of a cherry tree – could there be a nest?
• A sky blue and black striped very small bee (not too shy similar to the one I filmed last year) it had a white nose tuft also.

• Three unidentified yellow-legged bees going into holes on the mud banks of the pond I was digging (Mining bees?), and

I also caught on film a Comma Butterfly (my first) which was very beautiful to behold.

Overall a great day in my solitary bee land.  The amazing thing is that I have still to put into the sun my box containing 100 cocoons, so watch this space for tomorrow’s accounts!