Patchwork leafcutter bee

How to recognise it

A stocky bee of roughly honey bee size, dark with pale hair bands and a bright orange pollen brush on the underside of the abdomen. A foraging female appears to have an orange belly, which is unmistakable.

• Bright orange pollen brush on the underside of the abdomen.
• Seen carrying a neat green leaf disc in flight — nothing else does this.
• Neat semicircular notches cut from rose, lilac and wisteria leaves.
• Flies June to August, after the mason bees have finished.

Body length 10–12 mm (typically 11 mm).

Biology

Social organisation

Solitary

Each female builds and provisions her own nest with no workers and no caste. Most of the world's bee species.

Nesting

Existing cavities and tubes; Hollow stems and plant cavities

Uses existing tubular cavities of 6-8 mm — hollow stems, beetle borings, gaps in mortar and bee hotel tubes. Each cell is built from overlapping oval leaf pieces glued into a thimble, provisioned, and capped with a neat circular leaf disc. A completed tube is a stack of leaf thimbles.

Carries pollen

Scopa on the underside of the abdomen

On the wing

June to August

Lifecycle

1. 1EmergenceAdults emerge in June, as the mason bees are finishing.June to July.
2. 2NestingThe female cuts leaves, builds and provisions cells and lays, working alone for around six weeks and dying before her offspring hatch.Four to eight weeks.
3. 3OverwinteringThe larva completes feeding and overwinters as a prepupa in its leaf cell.Roughly ten months.

Where it lives and what it does

Habitat

Gardens, hedgerows, woodland edge, brownfield land and anywhere with cavities and suitable leaves.

Distribution

Across Europe, Asia and North America.

Behaviour

Fast and purposeful, and the leaf cutting is one of the most watchable things a garden bee does — the disc is cut in seconds with the mandibles working like scissors, and the bee falls away with it as the last cut is made. The plant is unharmed; the notches are cosmetic and the leaf continues to function.

Pollination role

An effective pollinator of legumes, composites and garden flowers. Dry abdominal pollen sheds readily onto the next flower, which makes it more efficient per visit than a honey bee.

High per individual, as with all abdominal-scopa megachilids.

What it forages on

Legumes and composites above all, plus a wide range of garden flowers.

Honey

Produces no honey

None. One pollen provision per cell, no colony.

Relationship with people

How people interact with it

Frequently reported as a rose pest and it is not one. The cutting does no measurable harm to the plant, and the notches are the clearest visible sign most gardens give that solitary bees are present.

Management

Provide 6-8 mm tubes in a bee hotel and leave the roses alone. Clean or replace tubes every year or two to control parasites and disease.

Conservation

Widespread and common. Dependent, like all cavity nesters, on the retention of hollow stems and dead wood.