BEES ( 1 )
Four or five years ago I cut 12 - 15cm sections of bamboo cane, pushed them into a section of plastic bottle and wired them to post in my garden. They are slightly angled down to prevent rain entering the central hole.
In spring I look to see if 'solitary bees' are making nests in the hollow canes. I did not notice any. However, today I realised the bees had been using the canes as the ends of some have been sealed. Certainly five canes with cut leaf, possibly another at the bottom left and one three above it with soil. There is another cane which looks used this year - the one with a clean central hole above the cane plugged with green leaf - all the other holes look "weathered."
These bees will clean out the centre of the cane. Cut pieces of leaf off garden shrubs (roses are a favourite, but I have no roses in my garden). Then lay an egg and put a large supply of pollen in with the egg. Next, plug this over with cut leaf making a self contained cell for the larva to develop in. The bee will then lay another egg, add pollen, add leaf and so on until the cane is full of similar cells; about eight cells for canes this length. Some species of bee use mud rather than cut leaf to make the cells.
The eggs produce a larva which feeds on the pollen, when mature it pupates and during spring next year turns into an adult bee. Now comes the cleaver part - the bee in the first cell to be made, the one at the far end of the cane contains the oldest larva/bee - the one we would expect to mature first. But it has to wait until the others, the younger ones, have emerged from the cane before it too can get out.
How each bee knows when it is its turn to come out of the cane is a mystery to me. Perhaps the bee senses a change in temperature or air pressure when the one in front has left the "nest."
"Nesting" sites for 'solitary' bees like this are easy to make and encourage bees to use your garden and pollinate your flowers and fruit trees and bushes. Occasionally 'solitary' wasps nest in the canes - but these are not the annoying yellow and black vespid wasps that come indoors when we make jam or chutney and give a painful sting. Wasps feed on such garden pests as aphids, scale insects, saw-fly caterpillars and other invertebrates that damage our garden plants. So, a win-win situation for the gardener - bees pollinate; wasps kill pests.
In spring I look to see if 'solitary bees' are making nests in the hollow canes. I did not notice any. However, today I realised the bees had been using the canes as the ends of some have been sealed. Certainly five canes with cut leaf, possibly another at the bottom left and one three above it with soil. There is another cane which looks used this year - the one with a clean central hole above the cane plugged with green leaf - all the other holes look "weathered."
These bees will clean out the centre of the cane. Cut pieces of leaf off garden shrubs (roses are a favourite, but I have no roses in my garden). Then lay an egg and put a large supply of pollen in with the egg. Next, plug this over with cut leaf making a self contained cell for the larva to develop in. The bee will then lay another egg, add pollen, add leaf and so on until the cane is full of similar cells; about eight cells for canes this length. Some species of bee use mud rather than cut leaf to make the cells.
The eggs produce a larva which feeds on the pollen, when mature it pupates and during spring next year turns into an adult bee. Now comes the cleaver part - the bee in the first cell to be made, the one at the far end of the cane contains the oldest larva/bee - the one we would expect to mature first. But it has to wait until the others, the younger ones, have emerged from the cane before it too can get out.
How each bee knows when it is its turn to come out of the cane is a mystery to me. Perhaps the bee senses a change in temperature or air pressure when the one in front has left the "nest."
"Nesting" sites for 'solitary' bees like this are easy to make and encourage bees to use your garden and pollinate your flowers and fruit trees and bushes. Occasionally 'solitary' wasps nest in the canes - but these are not the annoying yellow and black vespid wasps that come indoors when we make jam or chutney and give a painful sting. Wasps feed on such garden pests as aphids, scale insects, saw-fly caterpillars and other invertebrates that damage our garden plants. So, a win-win situation for the gardener - bees pollinate; wasps kill pests.