Wool carder bee, nesting and mating behaviour

Wool carder bee, nesting and mating behaviour

Ladies first! Here I will explore the Wool carder (Anthidium manicatum) (Megachilidae: Anthidiin) females’ behaviour, nesting etc. and then go on to the males. Unusually for solitary bees, female wool carder bees, are smaller than males and females...
Hairy yellow-face bee nesting inside Nurturing Nature nest box

Hairy yellow-face bee nesting inside Nurturing Nature nest box

Hairy yellow-face bee ( Hylaeus hyalinatus) I am assuming that this is the species! She nested inside a common yellow face bee (H. communis) nesting cavity. Looking at the BWARS site and Falk’s book ( links below) along with her two ‘shoulder...
Gasteruption jaculator and the hylaeus bee battle!

Gasteruption jaculator and the hylaeus bee battle!

Gasteruption jaculator and the hylaeus bee battle inside a nurturing nature nest box Since having common yellow face bees (Hylaues communis) nesting in my nest boxes, the alien-looking Gasteruption jaculator is a regular visitor with numbers increasing as the common...
Passaloecus wasp? with cached aphids for her larvae inside her nest

Passaloecus wasp? with cached aphids for her larvae inside her nest

 Solitary wasp as an aphid pest controller! Don’t spray your plants to be rid of aphids. Leave it to the natural aphid controllers. Not all wasps sting us! In fact, most do not. They never show any interest in humans whatsoever. Yet they have such a bad name...