The Leaf-cutter bees have been busy. This year they appear to be using leaves from the raspberry canes and a particular fuchsia that seems to be a favourite flavour, a very hardy perennial, gold-leaf variety called Genii. What posh little apartments they are making for their off-spring! The bees are filling up both insect homes … the established old version and the new pyramid shaped one.
The Leaf-cutter bees are making quick progress in filling up the bamboo canes with their off-spring
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7 comments:
your ongoing explanations of these has been very interesting. we don't have them
they are busy little bees aren't they :)
I don't think we have those. What is the flag on your blog.
Question? We have 'Carpenter Bees' here in The Southern United States - would creating nests like that preclude them from drilling their own holes into you house?
Even if you don't know the answer, I might just try it and see....
TM - There are leaf-cutter bees in the US. They look a little different to the ones we have over here but they are similar in nature, I believe (that being placid and extremely good at pollinating - much more productive than the honey bee.)
Colleen - The flag is our flag, the flag of England known as the flag of St George or St George's flag and it used to be your country's flag a long time ago before the stars and stripes.
Frank - The world is short of pollinators at the moment so it is a question of trying to make it easy for them to increase in numbers. The leaf-cutter bees the world over pollinate 20 times more flowers per bee than the honey bee, they are very placid ... I believe they do not have stings. The will create little leaf tunnels in hollows of wood which they sort of cement together creating something similar to a cigar as they wrap leaf after leaf around - the insect house, using bamboo canes just makes it a bit more easier for them to create a few more offspring.
This is very interesting, Polly Dearie. Didn't know the bees are these productive ;-)
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