Update on the state of the Japanese Hornfaced Bees in my Pilates Rope

For those of you who did not read the previous post from last spring about the Japanese Hornfaced Bee, catch up on it here. Essentially this new bee friend came into my apartment and moved into my sadly seldom used pilates cord. After roasting in the summer sun in an attic apartment I wasn't surprised to see no bees emerge in the fall. I waited to the spring to see if they would emerge then, but to no avail. So an autopsy is done...

razor blade to cord with crunchy bees under the plastic

there was a layer of mud in between each of the larvae

the bees were fully developed and had this tiny mouse turd looking

things on them.

we took out the magnifying glass and looked closer...

I am not sure what they were? Bee poo? or maybe a parasite of some kind that killed

them? They looked like little grains to me.

Bee Parts

Japanese horn faced bee wing with pollen on it

And the pilates cord in back in use...a bit shorter for the journey, but usable :)

The Japanes Hornfaced Bee

The Honeybee Alliance's newest member:

The Japanese Hornfaced Bee

For a few days a couple weeks ago I found my apartment a buzz with bees. I was confused as they would come as early as 6:30 am (much to the chagrin of my gf) and honeybees are late risers. Who were these bees poking in every hole in my apartment?

I watched as each morning between 6:30 and 11 am anywhere from 1 to 5 bees would come into my little apartment and check out all the holes. These bees sound and look like honeybees but they have their mandibles open, where honeybees rarely do. Hence the horn face, I suppose?

I watched as two bees took to an end each of my pilates cord which hangs from my curtain rod. Over the corse of a week these pods were growing inside the cord.

I watched as the mother bee would bring in pollen, sometimes even dropping it on my floor. I was so excited to have a hive IN my apartment, a little nest of solitary bees growing right before my eyes as I went about my days.

The pollen was sweet when I tasted it off my floor.

I learned that the Japanese Hornfaced bee is actually one of the best pollinators in the world! I read on sufficientself.com that, "In an apple orchard, an Eastern honey bee on an average day will pollinate around 50 flowers. The Japanese Hornfaced Bee (Osmia cornifrons), which falls into the classification of mason bee (genus Osmia), can visit 15 flowers a minute, pollinating as many as 2,450 apples a day. It's a solitary bee commonly used for commercial apple pollination in Japan and is at least 50 times more effective than the honey bee when it comes to pollinating apples (as well as most other tree fruits.) "

After a long day at work and a long drive to NY state I came home and went to look in the tubes to see a bee face looking out at me...but this time, there was no bee, but a seal of pollen/mud? I guess this is it until October? More bees are coming around looking for holes and I am in the process of making a home for them with Japanese knotweed (a noxious weed in the area that is full of hollow tubes just the right size for these little pollinating delights)