Mortar Bee
Mortar bees, also known as Masonry bees, get their name because they will sometimes utilize gaps in brick walls or occasionally dig into the mortar joints found in brick buildings. Several various kinds of bees can do this, but the most prevalent one is known by its scientific name, Osmia rufa.
How Do they look?
Mortar bees are often mistaken for wasps, although looking more like honey bees with their muted brown and yellow coloring than the wasp’s vivid yellow and black.
Mortar bees may be found close to one another since they are both solitary and utilize good nesting places. Still, they do not form the characteristic social colonies we connect so much with honeybees and common wasps.
Mortar bees are often found in areas with soft, exposed rocks and soil banks, where the female bee may dig to lay her eggs. In the spring, she constructs a network of tunnels or galleries into which she deposits her eggs; the hatchlings eventually make their way to the surface. There is only ever one such brood born each year. However, you’ll only get to view them briefly in the spring.
Life Cycle
With their brown and yellow coloring, Mortar bees are frequently mistaken for wasps. Since they are solitary and use suitable nesting locations, mortar bees may be seen together, but they do not form social colonies like honeybees and common wasps.
Mortar bees burrow into soft rocks and dirt banks to deposit their eggs. She builds a network of tunnels or galleries in spring to lay her eggs, which hatch and emerge. Each year just one brood is born. You’ll only see them briefly in April. With their brown and yellow coloring, Mortar bees are frequently mistaken for wasps.
Since they are solitary and use suitable nesting locations, mortar bees may be seen together, but they do not form social colonies like honeybees and common wasps.
Mortar bees burrow into soft rocks and dirt banks to deposit their eggs. She builds a network of tunnels or galleries in spring to lay her eggs, which hatch and emerge. Each year just one brood is born. You’ll only see them briefly in April. Cocooned adult bees hibernate in winter. Winter diapause permits adult bees to save energy and emerge healthy and energetic in spring.
Prevention
Since bees can only burrow into soft materials, repointing soft and expired mortar is the only method to avoid them. The joints should be swept out to 15mm (0.58in) and repointed using a mortar that is strong enough to deter bees but soft-sufficient for bricks. Mortar bees can deposit eggs in old drilled holes in brickwork and gaps around windows and doors.
Late summer, when the bees have stopped but before frost damage, is optimal for this operation. Spraying or injecting insecticides only works if bricks or stones have been penetrated.
Mortar bees are harmless nuisance insects with stings that cannot penetrate human flesh.