Mining bees, green bottle flies and wasps

[NewToGardeningUK]

Hi all, I just cleared my very overgrown garden which seems to have become a haven for various flying insects. There are loads of greenbottle flies, then an area heaving with what I assume are mining bees (but there are also a few wasps hanging around them). Obviously don’t wish to kill the bees, but have no clue what to do next. Any ideas / advice from someone who, unlike me, knows what they’re talking about?

Many thanks

 

[Meadowlark]

It's curious to me the large numbers of green bottle flies you are reporting. They feed on decomposing animal matter. Green bottle flies are scavengers and are part of the decomposition process. The green bottle fly is very common around dumpsters. Perhaps there is one in your vicinity?

Clearing out the overgrowth wouldn't affect the green bottle flies IMO but would help reduce the mining bees and wasps. Mining bees are solitary bees that nest in burrows in the ground.

 

[NewToGardeningUK]

I think local cats have been using my garden as a toilet, so now that it isn’t overgrow, perhaps they will be less likely to do so and will see the flies leaving? I’ve been reading about the bees and am slightly confused by the idea of them being solitary: there’s about 50 of them in a small area (perhaps many more underground?)

 

[NewToGardeningUK]

Thanks for replying

It's curious to me the large numbers of green bottle flies you are reporting. They feed on decomposing animal matter. Green bottle flies are scavengers and are part of the decomposition process. The green bottle fly is very common around dumpsters. Perhaps there is one in your vicinity?

Clearing out the overgrowth wouldn't affect the green bottle flies IMO but would help reduce the mining bees and wasps. Mining bees are solitary bees that nest in burrows in the ground.

 

[roadrunner]

I get a lot of green bottle flies when I kill rats I don't bury them too deep and the flies are amazingly able to get at them.

 

[Chuck]

Bottle flies are very beneficial. Not only do they feed on feces, garbage and carrion they are also great pollinators. Mining bees are also very good pollinators. I see them often on my squash and cucumbers. I don't know of any wasp that harms plants but many of them are great hunters of harmful insects and caterpillars.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

They may not be solitary bees, there are a few different species of bumble bee. Some are quite small, colony sizes vary from tens to hundreds I believe. Unlike honey bees they start anew each year though, so cleared your garden may not be so attractive last year.
If the cats persist there are some devices that work with motion detectors to make a noise unpleasant to cats, and one I saw that fires a high pressure water jet. I would bet it is cat shit that attracts the flies, cat food is high meat content.

 

[MargaretCollier]

I think local cats have been using my garden as a toilet, so now that it isn’t overgrow, perhaps they will be less likely to do so and will see the flies leaving? I’ve been reading about the bees and am slightly confused by the idea of them being solitary: there’s about 50 of them in a small area (perhaps many more underground?)

Hello! I have the same situation with cat

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I think local cats have been using my garden as a toilet, so now that it isn’t overgrow, perhaps they will be less likely to do so and will see the flies leaving? I’ve been reading about the bees and am slightly confused by the idea of them being solitary: there’s about 50 of them in a small area (perhaps many more underground?)

I once got a call to a cottage where there were so many solitary bees the owner thought he had a "Swarm or something" on his hands. He had masonry bees digging into the lime mortar. If the conditions are right for one bee they are right for others like it. Each bee makes a tunnel in which it build up layers of an egg and then food for that egg, the interesting piont is that the last egg laid near the mouth of the tube is the first to emerge as a bee, and so on back to the first egg laid which is the last bee out