Renter: Existing cavities. This bee nests in burrows in rotten wood and in dead stems. V. Lefeber (pers. comm.) has reared it in the Netherlands from tree trunks (including Salix) and stems of Betula and Cirsium. Frey (in Niemelä, 1936) mentions nests in old Pinus stumps. The nest illustrated by Lefeber (1979), and from which specimens were reared, was a misidentified M. versicolor nest (Lefeber, pers. comm.).