Who’s home or even whose home?

I decided to make this small addition to the Buzz Exhibition set, because, as well as seeing bees busy around flowers, you might just see a little solitary bee head peeping out at you from various holes.

Holes in the ground, in wood, in the dried and hollow stems of plants or in the old crumbling mortar in walls.
I always think the best nature guides have information about where you might find things.. and after all, “home” is where you will find most of us some of the time.
I took this a couple of weeks ago.  A little mining bee dozing at its burrow entrance just below our balcony.

So who might you see? A tawny mining bee looking up at you from her volcanic activities in the lawn; the wasp like white face of a Hylaeus peering at you from an old nail  hole in a wooden fence.

You might see the dark face of Osmia rufa, the orchard bee emerging from her new bee home which a kind hearted  person has provided for her.
If you are lucky you might catch a delightful male Megachile willughbiella complete with moustache and furry front legs. emerging from some crumbling mortar in an old wall or even an opportunist home in a garden hose, or old door lock.

It’s a lovely bee which I have yet to draw. I can’t quite understand why it is so endearing when wild things use our old discarded bits and pieces for their nests.
We had an old clock case in the potting shed where a robin made its nest every year and last summer my friend Gill ‘s son could not use his jacket until the wren and her little ones had decamped from the pocket. It’s a whole other set of paintings!

Who’s Home?

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP 8”x 8”