House Guests, House Pests: A Natural History of Animals in the Home (Natural History Narratives) by Jones Richard

Author:Jones, Richard [Jones, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781472906243
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2015-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

Mason bee Osmia tricornis

Mason wasp Odynerus antilope

Modern cement mortar is quick setting, very tough and has high compressive strength, but traditional lime mortar is a more forgiving, porous and flexible medium. This was (and still is) an important consideration when working with natural stone, terracotta and old bricks, and for combining wooden features. Given the inevitable settling of a structure built (as they all once were) on less than immovable foundations, the relatively flexible mortar can cope with slight seasonal movements of the underlying ground without extensive cracking. It is an easy and aesthetic substance to work with. But it is soft.

Although each female bee or wasp is only making her own nest, a single tunnel lined or divided into cells using mud daubs or leaf fragments, solitary bees and wasps do have a tendency to nest in loose aggregations. In vertical cliff-faces, sand pits and landslips this is because suitable habitat for nesting appears in small, discrete pockets, so these limited areas tend to become colonised by like-minded bees and wasps. Termed, rather fondly, ‘bee villages’ by entomologists, this is of no consequence if the nesting insects are digging holes in the steep edge of a roadside verge or railway cutting, but if they take a fancy to the warm, sunny wall of a historically important Oxford college or the teetering chimney stack of a Tudor manor house, there is a point at which they can threaten serious damage by weakening the already delicate mortar seams.

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