Comments on: Leaf Cutter Bee

By: Frank Pinnell

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:21:34 +0000

We opened our garden sunshade yesterday and a little green funnel of leaves fell out. When I picked it up it started to disintegrate, so I poked it back under the sunshade, and after a few minutes a bee arrived and began repairing it with little semi-circular bits of leaf. We had heard of leaf-cutter bees, and assumed this was one. It took it about ten minutes to complete the nest with a little trapdoor. We carefully folded and covered the sunshade, and now we have an unusable sunshade!

Frank&Eve

By: Dusty

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:44:11 +0000

these little treasures come every year and somhow make their homes in the hard compost in my cactus plants. I should miss them if they emigrated somewhere else

By: yvonne

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:25:53 +0000

Thanks for all the information here! I was wondering what had been eating our leaves until I saw that some of the bamboo in our insect house (hanging on the front of the shed by the wisteria!) had fresh green leaves sticking out the end. Did a search and came up with this blog…

I shall leave the bees to get on with it.

Jackie, we have wasps nesting in our garden and, as long as we leave them alone, they don’t do us any harm. They eat aphids and other nasties :¬D

By: Kris

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:06:47 +0000

I live in central Edinburgh and our balcony post and tubs have been decimated this year with the leaf cutter bee - we are on the third floor. We also noticed plants in the Botanic Gardens in the city have also been affected. Does anyone have a solution to stop them nibbling my plants there is no where for them to nest on my balcony?

By: Ian Wright

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:32:39 +0000

We noticed a bee entering one of our hanging flower bags a few weeks ago and today 23rd Aug 2007 have watched the bee taking leaf pieces in with it so have now identified same as above.

By: Carolyn

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:26:33 +0000

I live in Spain and my roses are being decimated, one bee flew past me with a great chunk of a pink pelargonium, I still have to find a nest but after reading the site I am heading for my wooden garden table.

By: charlotte

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:54:06 +0000

our leaf cutter bees make their nests in the screw channels on the underside of our garden tables. We have a nice time at out door meals watching them fly down under the table with bits of leaf to make the nests. Occasionally our guests are a bit alarmed when bees fly straight at them during meals. They have just reappeared (29th July). The screw channels are probably about two and a half inches deep and the same diameter as the bits of leaf.

By: Gary

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:18:41 +0000

I have a folding beer garden type bench and have been watching these leaf cutter bee’s using the the area’s where the screws go to build their nest/s
They are also doing the same to my wooden garden table and spend all day finishing off the holes with a variety of coloured leafs.

I’m sure they are using my passion flower leaves.

By: Mary

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:28:20 +0000

Hope they continue to be a source of interest - and I’m glad you didn’t exterminate them!

We haven’t seen our bee yet this summer - so the wisteria is in in “full”-leaf - but we keep looking.

By: Jackie

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:20:23 +0000

Ah, I’m glad I read this blog before taking action. I have at least two leafcutter bees turning my rose leaves into doilies. They are taking the cut pieces through a slit into a polythene hanging flower bag.

I thought they might be wasps and was going to dispose of the bag but now I know they are not harmful I shall leave it where it is and continue to watch with interest.

Jackie (London)