Bees

[Mrs Ava]

I know very little about the different bees that frequent our garden, but a couple of years ago, I had a mini bamboo wind chime in our tree which bees showed a lot of interest to. (bad English...sorry....past my bedtime!)  Anyhows, it fell to bits and when I had a look down the bamboos, they appeared to have been sealed shut, so I poked them into a piece of trellis against our fence, and there they have lived ever since.  I figured it was bees living there, but today I finally witnessed them coming and going.  So, my questions are, what type of bee could they bee and are they feeding a grub which will overwinter in the sealed bamboo to hatch out and start all over again next spring/summer??

[Mrs Ava]

[Robert_Brenchley]

Solitary bees, or possibly solitary wasps; there are any nuber of different species. The bees make cells full of pollen, and lay an egg in each cell, the wasps use invertebrate prey but are otherwise similar. What are the ends ceasled with? It tends to be mud, but some bees use sections cut from leaves.

[aquilegia]

What did they look like? (don't say like bees!)

Fat, skinny, colour?

We get a lot of Tawny mining bees whenever we dig. They lay their eggs and leave them alone. Solitary bees. Fascinating creatures.

[Doris_Pinks]

Don't mason bees use tubes? I have a kit somewhere someone kindly gave me that I have yet to put up!

[Robert_Brenchley]

They do; I got one from Buckingham Nurseries. They work well, though the tubes need replacing once they start getting manky, or they stop using them.

[Mrs Ava]

I think they seal the ends with leaves - or at leas that's what they look like.  What do they look like, well, I was suprised how large they are, getting in quite a small opening!  And fury, like a smaller version of a bumble bee.  As you can tell, I am not expert! ;D

So what are the bees that live in the sandy hill around my daughters school?  I call them ground bees as they appear to be living in little holes in the sandy ground.  They seem to hover just above the ground in a little haze, well, a big haze, and the kids love to walk through them!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Those sound like leafcutter bees. I'm not sure about the ground bees, there are quite a lot of possibilities.