Parker goes on to explain that wild bees also have a variety of living arrangements. Each solitary female is fertile, makes her own nest and provisions it. This nest can be a hole in the ground, a hut made of resin and sand or a hole in a dead branch or a piece of sandstone. The carding bee uses its tiny teeth to scrape the stems of hairy plants until it has a ball of fuzz. Then it takes the fuzz to a nesting site a hole in the ground or a hole in a plant lines the hole with fuzz, deposits pollen and nectar into the chamber, lays its egg and adds a closing lid of fuzz.
Parasitic bees live an even lower-maintenance lifestyle.
Because they lay their eggs in the nests of unwitting host bees, they don t need to invest in building or maintaining shelters for their eggs. Parker points to a dead sunflower about five feet tall. They just hang there. They roll up their legs, pull their wings around them, and just spend the night. They look like berries.