lignara bees, like many insects, can select the gender of the egg they lay by fertilizing the egg, or not. The new wall also doubles as the back wall of the next cell, and she continues until she has filled the nest hole with a series of offspring. She then collects more mud to seal off the partition. Once the pollen provision is large enough, she backs into the hole and lays an egg directly upon it. When the sun rises the next morning, she basks in its rays until warm enough to fly, then continues foraging. The female works tirelessly during the day, only stopping once the sun has gone down. One bee can visit 75 flowers per trip, and it takes 25 trips to create a complete pollen/nectar provision. Unlike honey bees, which visit flowers that are miles away, females visit flowers nearest the nest. She then makes several back-and-forth trips to nearby flowers. A female begins the process by collecting mud and building the back wall, if necessary, of the first partition. Orchard mason bees arrange their nests as a series of partitions, with one egg per partition. She is orienting on major visual features to find her nest when she returns from foraging. Once she has found a preferred nesting cavity, she flies outside of the hole and does an in-flight dance. A female might inspect several potential nests before settling in. Good nesting material (reeds, paper tubes, wood trays, or "bee condos") are as important as having the proper mud available (silty/clayey, as well as correct moisture content to grab/pack the mud). Beekeepers place prepared nesting materials to entice the females to stay close to the orchard or nearby forage. lignaria females nest in narrow holes or tubes, though they have been found to nest inside cedar shakes and even keyholes. When a female is ready, she seeks out a suitable nest. She is absent from the nesting site for several days while she feeds and waits for her ovaries to fully mature. A female typically mates once, or maybe twice. They remain near the nesting site and wait for the females to emerge, which can be several days to weeks depending on the number of days of warm weather. The bees begin to emerge from their cocoons in the spring when the daytime temperature reaches 14 ☌ (57 ☏). In general, it is recommended that propagation and subsequent transport be confined to the bee's natural boundaries commercial enterprise does not always respect these boundaries. propinqua, orchards are not always able to establish a self sustaining population and often require importation of additional bees on this research is continuing. While in much of the northwest conditions make it is easy to propagate O. In the almond industry, where bloom time is early, the bee is raised under artificial conditions that trick it into emerging several weeks early, coincident with the almond bloom. They do not overwinter in Florida and the Gulf Coast because of the lack of cold winter temperatures needed in its development cycle. lignaria found them to prefer the native Redbud over the orchard fruits. Researchers in one eastern study (Virginia / North Carolina) using the eastern O. Efforts at establishing them outside their native range have met with mixed results. The majority of research has been conducted in western orchards on the western subspecies. lignaria is among 4000 native bee species of North America, and its species is divided by the Rocky Mountains into two subspecies, O. lignaria is a common species used for early spring fruit bloom in the United States and Canada, though a number of other Osmia species are cultured for use in pollination. Unlike carpenter bees, it cannot drill holes in wood. Osmia lignaria, commonly known as the orchard mason bee or blue orchard bee, is a megachilid bee that makes nests in natural holes and reeds, creating individual cells for its brood that are separated by mud dividers.
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