Leaf-cutter bees outside my Studio
Why attract leaf-cutter bees?
Quite a few people on Twitter have been asking me about my solitary bees since I started posting photographs of them hatching, so I thought I’d write a post to answer some of the most common questions. Leaf-cutter bees are incredible creatures to encourage into your garden or allotment – great to observe and look after, and they are wonderful pollinators. This kind of bee is a ‘solitary bee‘ which does not form a hive or make honey, but works alone, although they will nest side-by-side and not fight or compete. They are in fact perfect bees for the garden, and safe around children as they do not store honey and so have nothing to ‘defend’ from attack. They are quite happy to let you go right up to the nest to see what they’re doing, as you can see from these shots of a bee hatching in my garden this week (click for a closer view):
What do the bees do in the tubes..?
The tubes are just the right size to allow the bees to easily construct their nest cells, which they make from circles of leaves. The bees fly out into your garden, cut perfect circles from your rose bush leaves (see also photo below, third from left), and fly back to the nest. You can follow them around your garden as they do this! Once back at the nest, the bee will curl up the circle of leaf, and take it into the tube with her. A bee will need many leaf circles to make each cell, since she lines the sides of the tube as well as sealing both ends of each cell with many layers of leaves. Before she seals each cell, she lays one egg, and puts food of pollen ‘bee bread’ to enable the hatched larvae to eat and grow during the time the cell is sealed. All of these activities can be observed by watching the tubes during the summer. Also fun to watch are the females bees clearing out old tubes at the beginning of the season; kicking out old leaf-debris in previously-used tubes, or removing the paper inserts from newer tubes (see photo below, second from left). These bees prefer to re-use an old tube rather than re-line a completely new one with leaves, and will ignore new tubes if there are any empty, weather-beaten tubes to re-colonise!
The life-cycle of leaf-cutter bees, in brief: The young bees emerge from their nests in June, and mate. After this the males die, and the females begin the work of nesting and laying eggs. Once sealed into the cells the eggs hatch, and the larvae feed on the ‘bee bread’, grow, pupate and develop into the bees which then hatch almost a year after they were laid as eggs. These newly-hatched bees mate, lay their eggs, and die before the summer is over, never seeing their off-spring.
How can I start encouraging solitary bees into my garden?
Where to buy the nests: The Oxford Bee Company who originally sold the cylinders and tubes is no longer trading, but cylinders and tubes can be purchased from various places online, for example WigglyWigglers and CJ Wildbird Foods. Or search online for ‘Oxford Bee Company’ for other suppliers. You can also make nests yourself out of old garden canes and similar stems, or by drilling holes in a block of wood, and these are successful. But I have found that the bees can be a little fussy about the diameter of hole they prefer, and many of the tubes may go unused if they are too big or too small – however these may be used by other bees or insects. I have had mason bees (which make their cells out of mud) nesting alongside the leaf-cutters in my nests.
Siting: The first year I tried the cylinders I attached them to a sunny wooden fence, but while there was some interest from bees that summer, none of them nested. I have since found that the bees do not particularly like the tubes when they are new, and prefer them to be somewhat weathered. However, I have also heard that the vibrations caused by the fence moving in the wind may also have discouraged them from settling. So I have followed advice to place the cylinders in a stable and sunny spot, a few feet from the ground, and preferably somewhere the tubes won’t get wet.
Plants to grow: There is a very useful site here which lists the kinds of plants that bees love. Obviously, leaf-cutters also like roses from which to harvest nest material, but they will use other similar plants and of course fly around the neighbourhood in order to locate suitable leaves! And equally obviously don’t use chemical sprays in the garden, as these are poisonous to bees; consider gardening Organically with wildlife controls, barriers, etc., it really is the only way if you want to encourage any kind of wildlife.
Over winter: Once the summer is over and the tubes are all sealed, you will need to put the cylinders somewhere dry and cool for the bees to over-winter. A garden shed seems ideal, but don’t forget to take them out again next Spring! Once Spring comes, re-position your cylinders where they were the previous year, and wait for the new bees to hatch. My leaf-cutters begin to hatch in the first weeks of June, towards Midsummer.
Lastly: Don’t be discouraged if no bees nest in the first year. It may well take a little while for them to find the nests and settle in. Also, you will find that if you stop spraying chemicals in your garden, and plant more of the bee-friendly plants, you will see a definite increase in bees and other interesting wildlife in your garden anyway!
Some links:
Learn more about helping bees by following the tweets of @JordansBigBuzz and @HelpSaveBees who post lots of bee news and information every day.
Follow me on Twitter.
Also, check out these articles on solitary bees, the best plants to grow for bees, and the Co-Op site on saving bees.
Follow this link to see all posts on leaf-cutter bees.
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