One sunny day last week I walked past the lambs ear in my front garden and something fast moving caught the corner of my eye. It was a wool carder bee!

Above I believe is the male wool carder bee. About the size of a honey bee, but more wasp like in colour, black and yellows. He was doing a loop of the patch of about twenty lambs ear stems in my front garden, circling them in an anti-clockwise pattern. If he saw another bee they were quickly dive bombed and chased away. He even tried to chase me away!

He only stopped occasionally, seemingly to refuel on nectar from the lambs ear, which was when I managed to take these photos. I came out several times during the week and each time found him there within seconds.

A few days after his first appearance – maybe 3-4 days later? – I spotted his mate. She was less ‘beefy’ looking and had yellow pollen collected on her legs. I think this is her below but correct me if I’m wrong.

She will now collect fibers from the wooly soft lambs ear plants and use them to line holes in hollow stems or dead wood, before laying an egg. This is where the wool carder bee species gets its name from.

Here’s a photo of the lambs ear plants glowing in the sun, next to my rosemary bush and foxgloves.

Below is my back garden from above. The large tree at the front is a cherry and there are large peonies and rhododendrons to the right, which like growing in Cornwall (as any fans of the novel ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne de Maurier know!).