Plenty of room at the hotel hymenoptera
Any time of the year, you can find it here.
This "hotel hymenoptera" is located in our backyard garden. Around the "hotel" quite a lot of interesting insect wildlife can be watched during the warm season, and the macrophotographer finds a lot motives in the immediate vicinity of his/her home.
The "guests" that breed in the drilled holes are mainly solitary bees of various sizes and some solitary wasps. Furthermore, the dipteran and hymenopteran parasites which oviposit on the larvae and stored food of these solitary wasps and bees are to be observed sometimes.
The "hotel" can be erected easily by boring holes with diameters of various sizes (between 2-10 mm, but a majority between 3-6 mm) and a depth between 5-10 cm into a roughly brick-sized piece of hardwood, oak preferably. We got our oak chunks as waste/rejects from a local saw mill. After drilling the holes put a wooden board on top and cover it with roofing paper as a shelter against rain and snow. Put it up at eye height preferably. It has to obtain sunshine, i. e. the front side with the holes should be directed south to southwest. The "hotel" can be mounted on a wall, fence or post in your garden or on your balcony, and it has to stay there the whole year round as the larvae need the change of the temperatures for their development.
The hotel´s inhabitants need supply of food which they hopefully can find in the surroundings. Especially the solitary bees can be fostered by nearby planting of native plant species that deliver pollen and nectar. For Europe I can name some plant species especially suitable, if anyone is interested; for the nearctic region at least some of the genus names of these plants should be identical. On a balcony this planting can be done in pots or flower boxes.
Here some flowers of Colutea arborescens, a European shrub that I have raised from seeds, and that now grows in a large pot. I can´t help it, but on a close look these flowers always remind me of a bunch of fiercely looking baboon heads! Do you see what I mean?
Here the flower of Colutea arborescens is visited by a female leaf cutter bee of the genus Megachile. Doesn´t she hold her hindlegs most elegantly?:D These Megachilid bees don´t carry pollen on the hind leg like honey bees and others, but in a "belly brush", i. e. hairs on the underside of the "abdomen" what can be observed on the photo . Sometimes Megachile bees are used as pollinators in commercial agriculture.
Hope you enjoyed,
--Betty
Lovely pics too!!
I think they look a lot like Yosemite Sam from Buggs Bunny cartoons. What ever happened to those anyway? 
