Ross wrote:
songbird wrote:

i plugged them up in the garden shed for the
past four days with no access to water or the
outside and sucked up all the returning foragers
in the vaccume... Ma had to get in there for
something and said they're still in there.

i think some type of mason bee. can sting
more than once. bugger got me before i got
her once in the heel and once on the end of
the index finger of all places. luckily the
sting wore off in a few hours. not allergic.
....
Sounds more like some kind of wasps or hornets, maybe Yellow Jackets.

i know all of those quite well. we have a lot
of wasps, hornets, yellow jackets around.


Mason bees are solitary and absolutely non-aggressive, only sting as a
last resort. They don't live in colonies and don't produce honey like
honeybees.

then it must be something else because there's a good
number of them in the wall when i bump it.


However, they are far more efficient pollinators than
honeybees and are great to have around the garden or orchard.

no, it's some type of small bumblebee, i called
it a mason bee because i've heard someone else call
them that. i'm trying to id it now, but i don't have
a dead one to look at (i don't want to open the vaccume
). until later i'll have plenty to look at when
they're all dead. i don't know how long it will
take for me to kill them off if they can't get out to
get water and it will be hot this weekend...

i've seen them nest in holes in the ground or in
rock walls, this is the first time they picked the
garden shed.

in the many years i've been here and with the many
bees around i've not been stung that often (perhaps
five times in all these years). the one that got me
was very aggressive, i don't know if it was the same
one that stung Ma, but eventually i was able to squash
it when it kept going inside my croc (it must have
sprayed something on the croc because it really went
after it). unfortunately the squashing of it also
meant it was not identifiable...

i work in many gardens with bees just a few inches
from my face or hands. i like them, would not really
want to kill any of them. even the hornets, wasps,
etc. are plentiful here. they like the large rocks
and build nests behind or under them. then once in
a while the raccoons come through and pull the nests
out and eat them. they must be able to smell them
or something. i have to go around the house once in
a while and knock the nests down.

the ones that do mud on the rock walls i leave
(mud daubers?) and the ones that do the plugs i leave
alone too. i like them, they're black or bluish and
very shiny and pretty and i also like how they flit
around. they have a lot of character...


songbird