Nix Nature Center, Laguna Beach, Orange County, CA. 6-21-09. © Ron Hemberger

Nix Nature Center, Laguna Beach, Orange County, CA. 6-21-09. © Ron Hemberger

Nesting and Mating Behavior

Irvine Regional Park, Orange, Orange County, CA. 6/9/10. © Ron Hemberger.

Layout: a clump of dessicated plants with wedge-shaped beetles, Rhipiphorus sexdens is a few feet left of a bench. To the right, a couple steps from the bench, is bare ground with a few holes in it. I saw a few bees nesting there a month ago, but not much was going on then and nothing seemed to be happening today. Maybe twenty feet farther to the right is a section of ground covered with dried vegetation. Above it were many bees - I assume male - going quickly back and forth a few inches above the ground in sort of a search pattern. Sometimes - not often - one would enter a hole. More often, they'd wait by the hole for a few seconds, then rejoin the squadron in the air. Female bees were eagerly jumped upon, and the coupling was both hard and fast. Bees were also under attack by bee flies, plus there were wasps with uncertain motives.

There are lots of blooming plants in the area: mallow and mustard are prominent, but encelia and bindweed also abound, plus others in smaller numbers. I have seen a few small, fast bees inspecting the mallow, but none touched down in my presence. I suspect mallow-visiting Diadasia here, similar to what I uncovered last year at Nix Nature Center, at a bustling site I called table top town: