Forest of Marston Vale – Solitary Bees

SOLITARY BEES

Look around your garden, local park or nature reserve, and you’re sure to encounter a variety of bees, busily collecting pollen from our trees and flowers. Familiar to most of us are the honeybees – skilful producers of the sweet golden substance that many of us enjoy – and the fluffy bumblebees that buzz nosily around our blooms.

Less well known though are the solitary bees, despite the fact that they comprise the majority of our bee species here in the UK – there are 240 or so different species in total. While honeybees and bumblebees are social bees, living in colonies together, solitary bees – as the name suggests – create their own nests. Some species of solitary bee will live alongside fellow bees in a type of social group, but interaction is limited and each bee will build a separate nest close to the others rather than having one shared nest.

Solitary bees have an amazing array of nesting sites. Some burrow into our lawns, some nest in crumbling mortar and three species in Britain nest exclusively in old snail shells! Others nest in plant stems, cavities in dead wood or will take readily to manmade ‘bee hotels’ like we have at Millennium Country Park. The majority of solitary bees nest in the ground. One ground-

nesting species that you might encounter in the garden is the tawny-mining bee. If you find small, volcano-like turrets appearing on your lawn these are probably the work of a female tawny-mining bee! The females are quite distinctive, being covered in a thick ginger fur. Males are more slender and their fur is yellowy rather than ginger. They also have white tufts of hair around their face.

The female will dig down to create an underground tunnel, which she then splits into a number of chambers. Inside these chambers, the female will create individual cells, into which she will lay an egg and provide a food package of nectar and pollen for her offspring. The cell is then sealed and the process repeated. The offspring stay in the nest over winter, and emerge as fully fledged bees the following spring. Interestingly, eggs containing male larvae are always laid nearest to the entrance of the nest so they emerge first, ready to mate with the females and begin the cycle again. If you own a ‘bee hotel’, the bees you’re most likely to see setting up home are cavitynesting bees such as mason bees and leafcutter bees. The red mason bee is a common species which is often found in urban environments. In addition to bee hotels, popular nesting locations include existing holes in southfacing brickwork or window frames.

Female red mason bees have strong jaws, which they use to harvest wet mud. The mud is used as a building material and is taken back to the nest cavity to create the partition walls between each egg-containing cell. She uses the antennae on her face to mould the mud. Mud is also used to create the seal at the nest entrance.

Male and female red mason bees are similar in appearance, with black heads, a brown thorax and ginger abdomen. Females tend to be a little furrier.

In the same way that red mason bees use mud as a building material, leafcutter bees use – you guessed it! – leaves. The patchwork leafcutter bee is a common garden visitor. The females cut neat discs from leaves belonging to plants such as roses, lilacs and honeysuckles. The leaves are then chewed into a pulp and mixed with saliva to create cell walls and a seal for the nest entrance. Patchwork leafcutter bees look like darkcoloured honeybees, with orange-tinged undersides.

Solitary bees are fascinating to watch as they go about their daily lives. They are great for the garden as they are excellent pollinators – often much more efficient than honeybees and bumblebees. Attracting them is simple – just provide habitat, food sources and stay away from pesticide use.

Bee hotels are inexpensive and widely available. You can also make your own by filling an old tin can with hollow bamboo canes and hanging it in a sunny spot, or drilling holes into a wooden fencepost. For groundnesting bees, try leaving a few patches of loose, crumbly or sandy soil in sunny areas of the garden.

You’ll also need plenty of nectarrich flowers to attract bees – ideally a selection that will bloom from early spring to late summer. Early-flowering bee-friendly plants include pulmonaria, chives and flowering currant, followed by lavender, marjoram, geranium, foxglove and catmint. For late summer, try growing buddleia, globe thistle, sedum and penstemon. Our Sensory and Wildlife Garden at Millennium Country Park is a perfect place to visit for inspiration…!

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