You can't always choose your tenants.

Sometimes they choose you.

Take the case of our two bee condos, which are blocks of wood drilled with holes for native bee occupancy. One, with the smaller holes, is for leafcutter bees (Megachile spp.) The other, with the larger holes, is for blue orchard bees (Osmia lignaria), fondly known as BOBs.

The leafcutter bees were the first to occupy the bee housing. At one time we had 16 leafcutter bees and one earwig.

The blue orchard bee condo now has three tenants: two BOBs and one spider.

The webweaving spider spun its web and then crawled into the hole for the night to wait for morning.

And to wait for unsuspecting prey.

(Like to learn more about bee condos? See the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility website, UC Davis. Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, compiled the list of resources.)