Saturday, August 13, 2016

leafcutters

a few days ago i had plugged and undisturbed tubes in the nesting block in the leafcutter bee house...i had decided to bring the block in this weekend but rain kept me from the job until a bit ago...when i pulled the block out i discovered...much to my annoyance...that some of the tubes are no longer pristine...so i brought the block in, put it in the predator-proof mesh bag and put it on the floor fo the plant room until i harvest cocoons later in autumn..i went back out to check ion the other two bee houses i loaded with reeds ( but not live cocoons ) when i put the leafcutters out in june..i found two plugged reeds in all..i tossed the rest since i am sure most of them are currently homes to earwigs and then opened the two plugged ones...the tube in the ninth photo was loaded with earwig larvae so i discarded it...the second one had some cocoons which, since the tube was plugged with clay, i will assume to be mason bees that found the nesting box amenable...sometime in november i will harvest the leafcutter cocoons and store them in the fridge until next summer when i will try to create conditions that will allow another generation of native bees to come about...neophyte that i am in this i am relying heavily on information from the supplier until i find some grounding...we will see how i do as we go...obviously by the fact i had to open the tubes to discern what was in them i have a way to go...i did notice that the tube with earwig larvae was plugged with a solid plug while the bee tube had a gap...ventilation? research.

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