Mason bees - unique moment captured on camera

I have put paper inserts inside in my mason bee blocks this year so that I can count the cocoons and keep the parasitic fly population under control.

If not internally smooth the paper tubes seem to irritate female mason bees as they build their nest cells... so I was watching the bees last weekend and caught sight of a bee one pulling this long piece of paper out, and just had time to capture it on film... so here it is.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• mason bee block
• mason bees
• solitary bees
• Osmia cornuta
• nesting activity
• school ecology project
• wildlife

[eccentricoldcow]

I am not keen on these nesting tubes as I find them very difficult to remove the cocoons from when cleaning. They unroll in a spiral and I'm unable to view the contents intact as they tend to pop out all over the place. So I shall not buy anymore and make my own by rolling on a thin length of plastic I kept just right for the job

[solitarybee]

@eccentricoldcow These were not commercial nesting tubes... I use the brown paper used for parcels or recycled envelopes. So there's no problem with the spiral compression tension of prefabricated nesting tubes + you can reuse them and they're low cost if not free if you save them up over the year.

As you can see here, the bees occasionally decide to trim the internal edges if the potential inner curl gets in their way. They were also pretty successful and the parasites could be cleaned out.

[eccentricoldcow]

@solitarybee How many times do you roll the paper around your chopstick you use & do you leave the paper proud at the entrance?I am doing some that way and some cut back flush.

One wonders what the bees would use if we didn’t provide such unique homes, as I’ve never found any evidence of sbs in the wild when collecting giant hogweed or Japanese knotweed stems.

[eccentricoldcow]

@solitarybee I think my last reply to you was on the wrong video, or the wrong reply to the right video lol.I know yours aren't commercial nesting tubes. I am rolling my own inserts now having seen your reasons for replacing with clean ones each year, to help against mite, pest and diseases It 's quite a tricky job to roll perfect edges.I’m trying to devise a method which does not cause curled edges and hurt my arthritic hands so much. Where’s that old fag rolling machine gone from days of old?