Excavator: Ground. Brood cells are constructed from cut fragments of leaves of Betula, Crataegus, Epilobium, Fagus sylvatica, Quercus robur, Rosa, Rubus fruticosus (Westrich, 1989). The nests are located in sand or sandy soil, they are usually linear-branched, and may form small, but close aggregations. The nest most commonly contains one main and two secondary galleries containing one to four cells (Banaszak & Romasenko, 1998; Stanisavljević, 2000).
Kasparek (2017) provides a detailed description of nest structure and states that nests are located in sand or sandy soil and constructed by the females, often in larger nesting aggregations, frequently close to pine trees (esp. Pinus sylvestris), whose resin is used for nest construction. Up to a few hundred nests can be found on a few square metres (Bellmann 1981, 2005).
Nests are usually 10-15 cm long, linear-branched, situated close to one another in soil at depths of 12–15 cm, forming small aggregations of 10 to 50 nests. They usually consist of one main and two lateral passages. Cells are located in lateral passages, and are constructed from long strips of leaf and resin (e.g. of Pinus sylvestris, Stöckl 1998), lining the inside of the cells. The cell linings are constructed from pine resin, and do not appear to contain any exocrine secretions (Cane 1981). One nest usually consists of 1 to 4 cells (Banaszak & Romasenko 2001), which are constructed of leaf fragments (mostly rolls of longish strips of leaves, up to 20 mm long and 2-3 mm wide) and resin. Bellmann (2005) observed that adults sometimes steal construction material from neighbouring nests.