Tony W. writes “I found insect pupae embedded by fluff this winter. There was also a stash of plant pollen also wrapped in plant fluff. A cavity in a timed water valve was completely filled by these items. I see that there have been comments on your blog mentioning these. I have come up with an answer as to what these are. I believe they are wool carder bee pupae. I damaged some of them trying to figure out what they were but have four left with one in quite good condition. With luck an adult will emerge and I can reach a firm conclusion. However, the descriptions of overwintering by these bees fits what I found quite well. ” see link http://www.nativebeeconservancy.org/native-bees/wool-carder-bees/ There are several articles and posts about this bee. This picture is from another blog post. To see other articles about this bees use the search window in the upper left corner of this blog and use the word- cotton You will find additional articles with pictures . Dr Margriet
Jennifer
We also found the cotton fluff this year and have quite a few wool carder bee cocoons. What a neat suprise it was to find them when we harvested our mason bees this past fall. We kept the cocoons seperate. Just wondering when we should be setting out the wool carder bee cocoons for this season? Was thinking May… Thank you for any guidance.