Jury is still out on the disease and pest argument. I treat mine with the same cleaning regime as bird boxes and change the bamboo canes every year. The old canes can sometimes be cleaned and put back the year after so it's not too much work. The bricks can be steam cleaned easily enough or filled with boiling water and they're about the best nesting material I've found.
The problem with the bricks is that you have to clean them when the bees have emerged in the spring and before they start nesting again which can be tricky.
I managed to get a pic of the other wasp that's been visiting. I thought it was a parasite but it's actually a mason wasp, you can see the ball of mud it's carrying. The sun came out just as I took the pic so it's a bit bright.
I also found a jumping spider checking out the holes so she might help with pest control.
Also leaf cutter bee
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Just caught these wool carder bees having a scrap over my patch of lambs ear. They started off just hovering an inch apart and turning in slow circles but it soon got heated and they ended up rolling about on the ground. Fearsome jaws on them too. The one got away while the other wrestled with a leaf it had grabbed by accident.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I was pleasantly surprised to get this much detail with my very modest camera. The bee was motionless for a long time while I took several pictures, so I began to suspect it was dead or dying. I went indoors to brew sugar water for it, but when I came back there was no sign of it. Must have just been cream crackered from pollinating all those tiny florets.
Loving the Bee pictures everyone...here is one from the garden on Friday, if anyone can ID it that would be appreciated, I'm not very good at Bee identification.
There were two of these on the Achillea, they were about 8/9mm in length, so very small and very fast too. If you look at how small an individual Achillea flower is, then this gives you a rough idea just how small they were.
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I was pleasantly surprised to get this much detail with my very modest camera. The bee was motionless for a long time while I took several pictures, so I began to suspect it was dead or dying. I went indoors to brew sugar water for it, but when I came back there was no sign of it. Must have just been cream crackered from pollinating all those tiny florets.
There were two of these on the Achillea, they were about 8/9mm in length, so very small and very fast too. If you look at how small an individual Achillea flower is, then this gives you a rough idea just how small they were.