bev - email - url
Great photos! I love that the leafcutting bee is using the holes in the ladder as a nest site! That makes me wonder if it would be worth making some kind of objects that the bees could use as nest spots. Perhaps some blocks of wood with holes drilled inside and placed so that water doesn’t get inside. In fact, maybe I’ll try making a few today while doing some repairs on the front porch railings. I notice that the page you linked to describes just the size of hole that those “pesky” bees prefer: Eliminating nesting sites can reduce the number of leafcutting bees in your area. Small diameter holes (size of a nickel or smaller) in soft, rotting wood are an ideal nesting site for these bees.
So, I guess if you would like to have more bees, you would just create a bunch of suitable holes for them. We do already have quite a good population of leafcutting bees around here in an average year, but imo one can never have too many! (-:
What a wonderful little green spider. I took a look at the other spiders photos on Bugguide and some of them do look much the same. I wonder if the absence of the bright red cephalothorax patch might have something to do with the age of the spider. That one looks to be a male, and maybe it’s just a couple of molts away from being an adult and less marked?
Btw, I like the naming of your ladder. Not sure it would work for me as lots of times I can’t even remember the common names of objects and end up saying, “Pass me the whatcha-ma-callit.” When asked what a whatcha-ma-callit is, I can usually only reply, “You know, that thing... the thing you step on.” Not sure if I could remember to ask for Lady Seymour, but perhaps I would! Must give that a try.
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 07:28:23
Wayne - email - url
Bev - the ladder was actually named by the manufacturer, but several us in the lab couldn’t help but crow over it.
As I recall Floridacracker has had a few posts on constructing artificial holes and tubes for things like this.
Or, maybe as the spider ages the patch gets more vivid. I notice these aren’t found very far north - a sighting in Virginia is the northernmost. Might be a good indicator for a warming trend!
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 08:25:19
bev - email - url
Yes, quite true about the spider aging and the markings becoming more vivid. Perhaps they are like teneral dragonflies that have almost no colour after they emerge. I’ve certainly noticed that in the case of a Dark Fishing Spider that had just molted. When we found it with the molted exoskeleton, it was sort of a bright orangish-beige. Not at all what that species looks like under normal circumstances. And yes, if that species is at the north end of its range, it might be a good indicator species – sort of like the ticks around here (arrrgh!! found another on Monday morning).
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 09:01:06
roger - email - url
so you climb up on “lady seymour” for a better view. sorry. couldn’t resist. we get wasps in our hose reels. and spiders. life just wants to take over sometimes, and come right up on the stoop and into the house. robin has been rescuing the hordes of tiny beetles which hatched out in our kitchen. ladybug shaped but dark with some green spots. not such a good description, but they are tiny. no idea from whence they came.
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 09:44:59
Mark - email
I’m a little late to several of the posts because of delay getting to work this week. Wayne, I noted with envy your report of rain a few days ago. We got enough to dampen the leaves. We are already hauling water in for our plants. And our plants look very sad after pruning away the cold damage. On a brighter note, the chestnut oaks beside our house are finally leafing out again. Quite a few of the trees damaged by the late freeze are recovering, but I can still see a lot of brown near the mountain tops at home and on the way over to north Alabama. I have seen two trees of apparently the same kind side by side, one releafing and the other still brown. I wonder if some trees weakened by last summer’s drought are having a hard time recovering.
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 09:54:21
Wayne - email - url
Bev - I almost blitzed the two species of ticks we have around here - the big “dog ticks” with the white dot in the center, and the little tiny “deer ticks”, but in situ photography would have entailed... well, never mind. It would have added to my pathetic animal list though!
Roger, they get into everything, those little arthropods. I carry something out of the house every day - I’m sure I’m not upsetting the natural selective balance. Mosquitos I swat though.
Mark - I was wondering if you’d gotten any of that rain. What is it about Northwest Georgia? It’s right there below the Cumberland Plateau, and just north of you gets lots of rain. You’ve mentioned Lookout Mountain, and right around there is Cloudland Canyon, is my geography right? Maybe you should start planting xerophytic Rocky Mountain type plants, although most probably wouldn’t like the heat.
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 13:11:32
Mark - email
Wayne, you have the geography right. I think we can see Lookout Mt from our deck, but it’s hard to tell. When I watch the weather radar, it seems like a lot of the time a nice, wide band of rain moves east across Alabama and then just sort of fades away before it reaches us. I’m not sure exactly what’s happening. But we are dry right now, and the forecast is not encouraging. Although we have had no problems with our water so far, I still worry, especially when my neighbors tell me their wells are 200 feet or more deeper than ours (ours is about 240 ft).
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 13:55:03
FC - email - url
Enjoy your break!
It’s funny ...
The bamboo bundle bee houses I set out in November have lots of occupied tubes. The second wave I put out in early spring have yet to be occupied. I can’t believe I missed some narrow window of bee kinnoodling, but so far the new ones remain open for business.
I’m betting there will be a second wave later in the summer.
Neat photos of the bee and Lady S.
Wednesday: 9 May 2007 @ 15:04:10
JennAlien - email - url
That is very, very cool about the leafcutter bees! Are you afraid to move Lady Seymour now for fear of disturbing them?
I set up a solitary bee nest this spring (a cylinder filled with a bunch of tiny cardboard tubes) but so far the only taker is a spider 
Sunday: 13 May 2007 @ 01:39:00