Digger Alley - Updated

They seem to be earlier than ever, but it's time once again to get down to Digger Alley at Minsmere.  This is the stretch of path between the pond and North wall that's home to all sorts of Digger Wasps & bees.  The original stars of the show of course are the Beewolves, though they've obviously not perfected their technique yet and are getting a bit messy!

A swift wash and brush up soon sorts things out though

Most of the activity this early on hasn't actually been with the Beewolves though, it's been the Weevil Wolves (ok, so that's not an official common name - they don't have one, but Cerceris Arenaria doesn't really roll off the tongue, so down Digger Alley, they're Weevil Wolves!).

They have a similar lifecycle to the Beewolves, but lay eggs on weevils instead of bees

We've even seen them mating for the first time.  Though it has to be said there appears to be three wasps here.  Ahem, well, whatever rocks your boat!

Sand Wasps too have been very active, there certainly seem to be more about this year than last

They do seem to like these exceptionally juicy morsels for their burrows - they fill the hole in after burying them with small stones & bits of vegetation

Every now and again however, they'll stop what they're doing and flop on the ground with their legs in the air.  I don't have a clue what they're up to, but can only assume their tootsies are hot!

I've not even worked out what this one is yet - it's obviously catching some sort of small bee, though cannot tell what at this stage.  Hopefully not the Green Eyed Flower Bee that zips about!

Finally there's this brightly coloured Jewel Wasp - it sneaks into every body else's burrows to lay its eggs on whatever it finds

We haven't even touched on the bees yet.  Ah well, this year's bee pics so far aren't very good, so I'll see what this weekend brings :-)