Megachile sp.

[crazylilthing]

Originally Posted by mickmassie

Got any pics of the nest box Crazylilthing ? M.

Here's one, showing that a bee has just sealed the last cell using a rose-petal. Is this unusual? I don't think it's the only layer in the seal.





This nest was completed within exactly a week of my construction of the nest box!

Note tile over the nest. It's a crude way of keeping the rain off but it seems to work. This is a south-west facing wall and the nest receives the hottest sun of the day.

This isn't a scientific fact, but from what I've observed, the bees seem to slow down their nest-making activity during the hottest hours of hot summer days and resume when things are a bit cooler. Can anyone confirm this?

The shortest flight from the nest to the source plant and back again took 48 seconds yesterday. The source plant was 20 metres away.

The longest run was nearly 2 minutes, when a comma butterfly appeared to be harrassing the bee on its return flight path, about 5 metres above the nest.

I have seen a comma in exactly the same territory for about a week now --- presumably the same one.