Chocolate bees - Bag of 10

Product Information

Solitary bees are only on the wing for a matter of weeks, so it is a race against time for females to complete their nests and ensure their larvae are fully provisioned. It is thought that the offspring complete their development in their brood cells in which they overwinter as fully developed adults before emerging in the following spring through nest entrance. The female chocolate mining bee (the larger of the two bees) has tufts of hair on the hind legs - the scopa.

Chocolate Mining Bees may be seen in relatively large numbers, which may seem surprising for a solitary bee, but they nest in aggregations, often sharing single entrances and making their own small chambers off the main tunnel. Both of these cleptoparasites may be seen lurking outside the entrance of Andrena scotica nest burrows. Also known as the Noolbenger- it’s aboriginal name - the honey possum is the world’s only true nectar-eating marsupial (indeed, one of the only mammals).

They leave a volcano-like mound of earth behind as they excavate, and are known to close this entrance over once they've finished foraging for the day, or if it starts raining. These bees often forage on spring-blossoming shrubs and trees as well as a variety of low-growing flowers.

Agroforestry has been shown to increase the shade conditions required for the chocolate midge to thrive - and continue to sustain that chocolate we so desire. ZomBees and Skeletal Bees are annoying because you can’t lure them explicitly; instead they’ll randomly spawn in dark, empty hives. The Yellow Loosestrife Bee even uses floral oil and mixes this into the nectar-pollen mixture for her larvae. Some bees are more primitive, such as Yellow-face Bees, who instead collect pollen in their crop to later regurgitate back at their nest. Andrena scotica is one of the earlier bees to appear and the flight period is mid March to late June with numbers peaking late April and May.

Urban or rural, beginner or expert, we need your help to record wild bees across the North East this spring and summer. They are also the species most likely to colonise nest boxes, and have adapted quickly to life in all manner of both urban and rural habitats since first arriving in the UK in 2001. For each of the 900-odd species of fig in the world, there is a unique species of parasitic wasp which pollinates it. The females are facultative communal nesters with a group of them sharing a common entrance to a burrow in which each female tends her own eggs and larvae within a chamber off the main burrow, constructing brood cells within her tunnel and provisioning the cells with pollen and nectar collected from a wide range of flower species. Note that villages often contain Sturdy Bee Cages as worldgen loot, which don’t stack, but are reusable; if you have a supply of those you can skip making your own, although you’ll still want to make one for the manual.

The milk chocolate was delicious - real proper milk choclate - and they were so well packaged that despite the heat of the last week, they arrived in perfect condition.In parts of the world where clean water is in short supply and sanitation is limited, non-viral gastroenteritis is a major public health issue.