June — Anthidium manicatum
Black, with paired yellow spots down each segment rather than continuous bands. That spotting is why people take one look and call it a wasp.
The name is literal. The female lands on a woolly plant — lamb’s ear, mullein — and shaves the fuzz off it with her jaws, rolling it into a ball as she goes. Then she flies the ball home and lines her nest with it. Carding is the same word used for preparing wool.
The males are worth knowing about too. They are larger than the females, which is rare in bees, and they are violently territorial. A male claims a patch of flowers and drives off anything that enters it, using five spines at the tip of his abdomen. He will kill a honeybee over a stand of lamb’s ear.
This one came from Europe and has been living in North America since the 1960s. It is here now, in Portland gardens, which is reason enough to include it.
Photographed at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge by Jonathan Swanson.
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