Help identify garden beast….

Hello all… Recently noticed loads of little mounds of dirt in my front garden. Look like little volcanos.

Done a bit of a Google and to me I think they are miner bees? Anyone in the know who can confirm… Don’t bother me as such but making the already crappy front garden look even worse.

Do I kill or leave them be… If they are indeed bees, I have no issue with them. How long do the little beasts get jiggy for and can I expect them all to dissappear once the sprogs hatch and fly off to eat, drink and make more sprogs.

Cheers! (pics below)

It’s definitely a bee, and it’s definitely been mining, so that does point to miner bee. Exactly which one I can’t help with immediately, there’s hundreds!

Ha thanks goldfish 🙂 not sure I want to go all Putin just yet so will try some garlic or peppermint oil (according to Google this might work)

I am sure they are bees… I read about digger wasps and not so fond of having those around!

There seems to be a multitude of experts on here so if anyone can identify beast I would be interested to know exactly what I am dealing with and if I need to go full Putin what would I need to do?

Let them live! I get them at various times and also some hairy leg bees in my borders, I’m allergic to bee and wasp stings but would still not try and get rid of them. They’ll move on, meanwhile, just let them bee? Sorry.

my ‘expert’ entomologist (sp) friend says its a mason bee?

EDIT: hes just apologised and says he thinks its a ‘solitary bee’ now. thought he was taking the p1ss but it does actually seem to be a thing…..

Hmmm thanks guys! Mason bees… Hmmm they eat bricks and mortar right? Hang on will go see if I can get one of the little beasts out of one of the holes and a better picture ……. Wish me luck

Hmmm they eat bricks and mortar right?

No I think they build stuff out of masonry.

They are definitely self-employed bees though.

This article seems reasonable. Bees are cool, there’s no real reason to kick them out, they won’t be around for long anyway. Make friends with your little buzzy neighbours.

Leave them to it. My parents house (late 60s Jelson job) had masonry bees that I used to watch occasionally as a kid 40 years ago. The house is still there.

If you’re really bothered about them in your brickwork then wait until they’ve gone in autumn and slap a bit of mortar in.

One wheel – good article thanks!

Garden tiger – they aren’t in my brickwork… They are in my garden. Digging holes.

Ernie… They better pay tax 🙂

We get thousands, literally, of ivy mining bees on our south facing front lawn in August/September, from a distance you can’t tell but up close and it’s like the lawn is alive – the males don’t sting and females only have a tiny sting like a nettle. They’ll even tolerate a lawnmower cutting the grass right over them, they really don’t mind.

I think most mining bees like sandy soil on a south facing warm patch.

Sadex punk… Solatary to me means anti social, lives on own, hates people (bit like me to be fair). These beasts have dug hundreds of holes… In very close proximity. So they must like neighbours… Or want some kind of relationship with others, otherwise there would be one hole surely?

Solitary bees can live in huge groups, solitary just means they nest indivually (hence lots of burrows) rather than in a large single hive.

Our ivy mining bees are solitary bees but we get thousands of them on a patch of lawn 10m square.

Leave them be, they’ll be pollinating plants, without pollinators there wouldn’t be many plants about, etc etc.

Tall Paul… Interesting. I hate killing things. Was working out what would work better in my arsenal but decided to just go with the beer and sit and watch them for a bit.

Absolutely leave them bee! So what if the gravel looks a wee bit untidy, it’s gravel and doesn’t matter, the bees, on the other hand, do – while there are plenty of other pollinators around, like beetles, flies, butterflies and moths, we need everyone of them, and they’re no threat to humans or pets. I’d be thrilled if I had them nesting in my garden.

My OH seems pretty confident its either a red mason bee or a buffish mining bee. Shes pretty good on this sorta stuff

I think they are miner bees?

Do I kill or leave them be…

Miner Bees unlike honey bees are more solitary, less socialised, shun unions and are naturally predisposed to haemophilia. If you want to get rid of them play recordings of Arthur Scargill speeches close to where they are digging burrows.

Any union honey bees in the locality will swarm to the location and set up a picket line. The miner bees will have no hesitation in crossing this, but the honey bees will just kick off – hurling abuse, brick, bottles. When struck by any of these missiles the haemophiliac Miner Bee will tragically bleed to death while all the surrounding union Honey Bees, unaware off the irony, shout ‘Scab! Scab! Scab!’

I read about digger wasps and not so fond of having those around!

I’ve got digger wasps the gravel outside my bit,  and totally dig them. Lovely little dissident agrarian communists- no chance of them crossing the picket.

Any union honey bees in the locality will swarm to the location and set up a picket line. The miner bees will have no hesitation in crossing this, but the honey bees will just kick off – hurling abuse, brick, bottles. When struck by any of these missiles the haemophiliac Miner Bee will tragically bleed to death while all the surrounding union Honey Bees, unaware off the irony, shout ‘Scab! Scab! Scab!’

This must be true, I read it on the internet

We’ve got numerous ant nests etc in the garden. I stop the missus from digging them up. Occasionally I lift the rocks gently with the kids and watch them. They do zero harm and are really quite interesting.

We also have a large Laburnum that the kids have always called ‘The Buzzing Tree’ because it is properly loud with bees for about a fortnight in June.

Wildlife has a hard enough time without us chasing ‘perfection’ in our little patches.

Ants are fascinating and have endearing human qualities, such as the ability to mobilise armies to attack and kill other ants because they are slightly different to themselves.

But I could never completely trust a creature with such highly developed organisational skills.

Must be Nottinghamshire miner bees as described!

Reminds me of something…

What caused mysterious holes in lawn?

Cor, glad I read to the end of the thread before posting. Had a right panic on reading your response to my post – second on the thread. Thought you wanted an id cos you were interested in them, didn’t want to be an accessory to murder! Lol. Ok you’ve come to your senses. Funny isn’t it that a lot of us were raised to fear nature and figure out which weapon to deploy against it. Fortunately getting over that now as a species. Hope you enjoyed that beer watching the bees. 👍

How depressing and typical of anthropocentric attitudes. Muting the idea of killing wildlife because they are causing some visual intrusion on your lawn. Pathetic and sickening.

It was always just a matter of time before ants figured out a way to access the internet.

How depressing and typical of anthropocentric attitudes. Muting the idea of killing wildlife because they are causing some visual intrusion on your lawn. Pathetic and sickening.

You’ve inadvertently subverted your intended point but in doing so reflected the actual vibe of the thread.

Nice try though.

It was always just a matter of time before ants figured out a way to access the internet.

And they can type really quick too – if they stand on their hind legs and use the other four plus two antennae.

Spiders would have them beat, but they just aren’t organised enough. Although they are good with webs.

It’s one reason i rarely do any gardening before june or after the middleish of September, let all the creepy crawlies and flappy buzzy things do what they want. (I’ve also got loads of the garden and the surrounding forest left completely wild)

The other reasons are that i’m really lazy and it keeps raining.

Not only that, once it is sunny, i’d rather sit on the deck with a cup of tea and watch the creepy, buzzy, flappy things enjoying themselves.

Leave them bee.

Love that pic with all the little volcanos! I want some solitoary masonary minor bees as pets 🙂

(There are some strange people on this forum with no sense of humour, aren’t there?)

and watch the creepy, buzzy, flappy things enjoying themselves.

Wasps seen to particularly enjoy a picnic.