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Megachile sp.
Small dark-colored bee with white stripes on abdomen. This is probably Megachile pugnata, but I need to do a bit more research to figure out how to separate this bee from the others in this genus.
I found this bee at a bee house that I had built and then attached to our garden shed.
These little bees are excellent pollinators. Instead of having pollen baskets on their legs, they have tufts of specialized hairs on their abdomen that picks up pollen. The bee house that I built was constructed of three sections of 2" x 4" pieces of wood nailed together and then drilled full of holes of various sizes. The solitary bees and solitary wasps nest in these cavities. There may be several cells in each cavity each contains an egg and supplied with pollen and often some nectar (see the second photo) for the developing larvae to feed on. Once nesting is completed the adult bee seals the last chamber and shortly afterwards dies leaving the young to develop on their own.
Spotted on Jul 4, 2012
Submitted on Jul 5, 2012
2 Comments
Thanks Alice!
Like your pictures and information!