Megachile (Macromegachile) maritima (Kirby, 1802)

Excavator: ground. Nests of this bee usually occur singly, although an aggregation of many nests was encountered in level, loose sand at The Raven, County Wexford, in July 1999, (S.P.M. Roberts, pers. obs.). In Cambridgeshire, H. Gadow reared a pair of these bees from a nest found very near the surface in the thin, chalky soil (immediately overlying the chalk) of a potato field (specimens and nest in UC). Specimens have also been reared from a nest excavated from sandy soil on the Isle of Wight (pers. obs.).

The cell walls are constructed from leaf sections cut from various plants, including Salix and Cynoglossum. Nests have been described, and individual cells figured, by Nielsen (1915), Walrecht (1958) and Grandi (1961).

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