Renter: Existing cavities. Nests are apparently established in a variety of suitable niches in rocks and dead wood. Nevinson (1901) records nests in north Wales constructed in small cavities in the stones that are used for field walls. The female holotype described and figured by Curtis (1828), was said to have been flying about walls near Ambleside, Cumbria (presumably this is the origin of its specific name), and on Skye, Spooner (1937) observed a female flying over a ruined wall. In 1999, females of this bee were observed by C. Clee (pers. comm.) nesting in deep fissures in exposed rocks and in dry-stone wall banking at a coastal site on the Lleyn peninsula, Gwynedd.
On the continent, the species has been reported as nesting in holes in dead wood (F.K. Stöckhert, 1933; Banaszak & Romasenko, 1998). It has been reared several times from wooden trap-nests in Sweden and Germany (B. Svensson and P. Westrich respectively, pers. comms.); in the Netherlands, V. Lefeber (pers. comm.) has reared it from an old post.
Schmidt et al (2017)(citing others) state nests are constructed in various cavities such as holes in deadwood, abandoned nests of other hymenoptera, and cavities in joints in masonry and between stones (Scheuchl & Willner, 2016)
Nesting material: Cell partitions and nest plug are made of chewed leaves (e.g. from Fragaria or a mixture of lichens and bryophytes). (Banaszak and Romasenko, 2001; Benoist, 1931; Frey-Gessner, 1880; Friese, 1923; Grünwaldt, 1939; Stoeckhert, 1933; Westrich, 1989)