Attracting solitary bees

[ken]

You may remember I put a bee nesting box up in the garden to attract red mason bees. All was going very well until it was attacked by woodpeckers: I had to salvage what was left of the nesting tubes, and protect the 'box' with wire netting.
It doesn't look as though I'm going to get any more red mason bees this year, but a couple of tubes have been filled up by one of the leaf-cutting bees.
And a fascinating bit of trivia, gleaned from a nature book. The UK has one species of honey bee, 18 species of bumble bee, and 227 species of solitary bee.

[vivie veg]

I was tying in my tomaotes today and noticed a small wasp crawl into the end of a bamboo cane, fortunately not one of the large nasty wasps that attack you and your drinks at the BBQ, but what shall I do now? This was inside the polytunnel.

[peter]

Leave him/her bee.

It will probably be a solitary, predatory wasp and hopefully will predate your pests.

[vivie veg]

I plucked up the courage to look inside the bamboo cane today, no adult, just 2 grubs. I will leave them bee

I don't like killing anything unless absolutely necessary...like the horse flies that have had me twice this year already

[Wellie]

Trousers and me watched a bee with great interest one evening. I have three pots of wild garlic growing under an old mangle, and the bee would come back from next door's garden with a bit of weeping willow leaf, folded, and take it into the pot from the bottom drainage hole. So I stopped watering the pot, just in case.....

About a fortnight later, a strawberry pot given over to Thyme plants grown from seed this year attracted a small solitary bee, who now regularly goes in and out.... I'm only watering when necessary, and as sparingly as I can.

Fascinating creatures.
Wellie