Monday, July 14, 2008

Leaf-cutter Bee

I found one of these bees yesterday working an old screw hole in the house wall. Then this lunchtime I noticed more activity than usual around the insect box. Closer inspection found at least leaf-cutter bees Megachile centuncularis. The book says that this species is a rose specialist, and sure enough, less than ten feet away I found these holes in a rose bush! I watched the larger of the two insects fly to another rose and suprisingly collected part of the pink petal rather than a leaf - clearly a designer leaf-cutter bee!

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