Kate Bradbury’s wildlife garden is less than a year old, but
her lambs’ ears plants are already attracting new pollinators to the plot
Friday 29 July 201610.00 BST Last modified on Friday 29
July 201610.01 BST
Wool carder bees are nesting in my garden. I’m proud and
happy and slightly obsessed – I sneak out during the day and sit by my patch of
lambs’ ears (Stachys
byzantina): the bees seem particularly fond of both its nectar and
pollen, as well as using it as nesting material. I watch aggressive males fight
each other in hilarious territorial struggles; brief, no-frills copulation; and
females gathering tiny hairs from the furry lambs’ ear leaves to line the nests
of their young.
In the evening I look for signs of them in my bee hotels.
One male sleeps, or rests – if resting is a more appropriate description of
what wool carder bees do at night – curled up in his ‘cavity’. As my eyes
adjust in the half-light of dusk I can just make him out from deep within the
hole. I wonder if he can sense me peeking in as he lies, face drawn into his
belly, back to the world.
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