Red Mason Bees in the garden

Plenty of Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa action in the garden over the last week or so. A single female is nesting in our homemade bee hotel and it has been fascinating watching her building the cells and bringing in pollen for the larvae. Several males are also kicking about and frequently rest on the bee hotel waiting for females to appear. Witnessed one trying to mate with the female by grabbing her when she emerged from the nest cavity and forcing her to crash to the ground. But females only mate once and he was quickly seen off. So far only three nest cavities have been completed. However, the temperature has dropped by several degrees over the last few days which has no doubt slowed egg-laying.

All photos below taken with a Samsung Note 4 smartphone. It looks like Google have changed the image compression applied to images uploaded to Blogger and therefore photos on Blogger now look utter shite.

Female Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa after exiting her nest cavity, Worcester Park, 16 April 2017. Note the dusting of pollen - like all
solitary bees, Red Mason Bees do not have pollen baskets like Honey Bees do.

Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa, Worcester Park, 16 April 2017. The males have whitish hair on the face (blackish on females) and much
longer antenna.

Female Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa guarding her nest cavity, Worcester Park, 16 April 2017

Red Mason Bee nest cavity - penultimate cell sealed with mud (left), mud seal after last cell completed (right)

Our homemade bee hotel made from a salvaged piece of felled willow - took hours to drill the holes

Some excellent information about Red Mason Bees here.