Renter: Existing cavities. Nests in existing cavities (eg beetle emergence holes). Nests in a variety of cavities, including holes in dead trees (up to 14 m above the ground (C.R. Vardy, pers. comm.)), wooden fencing, logs, burrows in a sand pit (Blair, 1920), vertical sand banks (G.M. Spooner, pers. comm.), dead Rubus stems (Danks, 1971b; and specimens in various collections), and a fissure in a mortar joint. Nest illustrated by Malyshev (1968), Westrich (1989) and Müller, Krebs & Amiet (1997). Prepupa briefly described by Danks (1971b).
On the continent, the species has been reared from a Phragmites stem (Malyshev, 1968) and a vacated gall of the chloropid fly Lipara lucens (Diakonoff, 1937); in Holland, V. Lefeber (pers. comm.) has reared specimens from stems of Sambucus and Fraxinus, and Crataegus wood. Westrich (1989), also states that a nest has been found in a vacated gall of the cynipid wasp Andricus kollari.