by Pascale Jacq
What a joy to walk in gareeal (summer rain) today on Yalukit Willam land after our couple of scorcher days. I don’t know how you have been enjoying summer and the holiday period but I took it very slow and stayed on Boonwurrung country, swimming in naarm, meeting new friends. I’ve noticed so many different insects flocking to Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve and I’m excited that they’re also visiting my tiny courtyard in St Kilda!
Native insects are crucial critters for healthy nature. They are incredibly diverse with an estimated 200,000 species of insects in Australia, including around 2000 species of native bees.
The first day of the heat wave, I was amazed to see a tiny masked bee (Hyleus sp.) face slowly chewing its way out of its cellophane curtain in its burrow (see below). I thought, ‘Wow… this little native critter is already an adult, but this is the first time they have seen the sun and the outside world!’
The next day another five masked bees emerge from burrows their mother had laid in early December. Other smaller holes were busily being filled by small black Pison wasps, which leave behind paralysed spiders for their babies to munch on. And a bright emerald cuckoo wasp (Chrysidini) quickly snuck an egg in her burrow whilst the Pison wasp was out foraging.
Where do bees sleep? The females seem to find shelter overnight in one of the holes in my pollinator hotel and others, like leafcutter bees, might burrow in the ground. The males love congregating on grass stems and long branchlets of She-oaks overnight, and especially on rainy or overcast days. Pictured below are some males roosting on She-oaks at Yalukit willam Reserve and in St Kilda Botanical Gardens.
Right now is native bee nesting time. If you don’t have an insect hotel (like some of these gorgeous ones made from corporate volunteering in the photo below), you could easily build one with an old wooden drawer chocked with drilled hardwood offcuts like mine, or you might like to buy some that EcoCentre volunteers have crafted with us at the end of 2024. These are available for $95, with proceeds to support habitat and revegetation projects.
Don’t forget to put out shallow water trays for our insect friends on hot days.
Make your summer bee-utiful!
