Notices by Colin Purrington (colinpurrington@flipping.rocks)

I've been sorting through the nests at my insect hotels and was happy to find some filled with cocoons of Osmia georgica, a native mason bee. You can recognize them by the bright green partitions made from chewed leaves and from their beautiful orange frass. They provision nests with pollen from the Asteraceae. #bees #insects #BeeHotel #InsectHotel #entomology #nature #Hymenoptera

If you're curious what I do with the mason bee cocoons each year (see previous post), I keep them in my unheated garage until the adults start to chew their way out, then place them out on the patio of my insect hotel. Most fly off to find hollow plant stems and tunnels bored by beetles in logs, but some return to check in to hotel. Here's an Osmia georgica emerging on April 20, 2021. #bees #insects #BeeHotel #InsectHotel #entomology #nature #Hymenoptera

Orange spindle coral (Clavulinopsis aurantiocinnabarina), a gregarious saprobe found in moist hardwood forests. Also goes by orange worm coral if you don't know what a spindle is. (Can you find the globular springtail?) #fungi #fungus #mushrooms #nature #Collembola