There have been half a dozen reports of cotton fluff inside the nesting tunnels. Here is one I found myself. Most of the fluff is just that, but two cocoon type structures were found in the center row. If someone knows what this is please let us know.
A nesting tray with 6 routered channels containing mason bee cocoons, and cotton type fluff in two of the channels. |
Here I have lifted some of the fluff out to show how it neatly fits into the channel. |
For comparison, this appears like a spider web, which either contains young spiders or an adult spider. |
suziam
I was just looking inside my Orchard Mason Bee house and found a good wad of the same cottony material. Cocoons were inside as well.
I wasn't sure if these were also OMB's or a parasite of some kind. I'd love to know if anyone answers your question.
HeidiBee
European wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum)? We have a row of this fluffy stuff in our Mason Bee viewing box – not in one of the tunnels, but between the side of the nesting tray and the inside edge of the box.
Narda
Doing a search of ‘Why bees gather fluff’ brought me here. Now I know where all that fluff ends up! I was in my garden (in West Wales) and could hear a little scratchy sound down at the base of one of my plants. I investigated, and it was a masonry bee. The scratchy sound was it harvesting the down from the new leaves of this fluffy-leafed-plant (sorry, I can’t remember the name of the plant) The bee then flew away carrying this ball of fluff which was at least 1/2 it’s size in it’s legs. I’ve never seen that before, what do bees want with fluff!? …. to make a comfier nest it would appear. So there’s the answer to your question. It’s fluff gathered from the down of new leaves.