Breaking, Entering ... and Murder!

We went to Annapolis (our state capital) to visit the William Paca House, a restored 18th century mansion and garden. We'd been in need of a history infusion for some time and this seemed to fit the bill. Getting there required more effort than I had anticipated ... navigating a ridiculous network of narrow one-way streets, being confused by arrows pointing to parking that never appeared, and dodging hobos, not always successfully. We eventually found a parking garage, drove in dizzying circles for awhile and eventually found a spot. Our limbs creaked and snapped as we unfolded from an hour in the stress position. We stepped out of the iron maiden and took our first deep breath of the Chesapeake Bay air. It had the familiar taste of a tourist trap ... old grease, dung, hot dogs and taffy. (Did you know that hotdog is Mitt Romney's favorite meat? He's a fan of hamburger, too, but he likes hotdog meat best.) We concluded that the miasma must be breathable to support so many hobos. So, we exhaled and continued our trek through Funkytown on foot.

It was hot.. red-brick-oven hot. We tripped on loose bricks, but a sticky coating that covered most things also grabbed the soles of our shoes and kept us from falling. Or maybe it was the pure dread of not being able to extract ourselves from the stickiness that kept us upright.  As we slogged uphill, we tried to imagine what it would've been like to stroll by the 18th century architecture without sticky soles and a zillion Japanese cars lining the streets. Not easy.

We eventually arrived at the William Paca House, climbed the stairs and encountered a sign on the door: "Closed due to Special Event." I glanced at Janet ... dark clouds were gathering. After restraining her from heaving a loose paver through Paca's window, we made our way back uphill (again?) to the parking garage. While we didn't get to see the big garden, there was some consolation in seeing this little one ... but not much.

How do they know it's from the pets?

We re-located our car, engaged the wipers to remove remaining bits and smears of hobo, and careened (tires a screechin') out of the stinky parking hell hole. I would have preferred to be disappointed closer to home, thank you.

Several hours after leaving the house, we returned, historically unfulfilled and with a mystery awaiting us. One of the finials that adorn the posts of the deck guard rail had been vandalized or had exploded spontaneously from within. There were pieces of wood scattered about and, even weirder, bits of green leaves. As is my habit, I first turned to supernatural explanations. Perhaps a fairy salad factory ...sweat shops, really .. had blown up?  While this was plausible, all the fairy salad factories I've seen were located under stones in grassy meadows. So, that explanation seemed improbable. Besides there were no fairy parts among the splinters.

No fairy bits.

I moved on to human agency as an explanation. Given the news of the day, it seemed possible that illegal immigrants had been hiding marijuana or coca leaves in our finial and a rival gang (MS13, perhaps) destroyed the stash in retribution for some act of disrespect. ("Hey, hombre, your shoe laces don't match your tattoos!") Could all our finials be at risk?  I found no evidence of stashes in other posts. It didn't seem reasonable for a drug gang to use only one finial. Three or four, maybe, but one? Incomprehensible.

So, what criminal of  nature might be responsible? There's probably a fairly long list, but a couple of winters ago, I caught a vandal red-headed in the act of desecrating our finials. A Pileated Woodpecker was walking along the top rail, inspecting each finial. At one point, he stopped and struck one with his bill, and I saw a piece fly off it. He acted like he didn't even care and move on to the next one. This psychopathic instigator is the prime suspect.

A Pileated Woodpecker contemplating the destruction of our deck.

Now, if we put psychopathy and malevolence aside, why would a woodpecker want to destroy a finial? Clearly, there was something desirable inside, and the leaves provide a great clue as to what it was ... the brood of a leaf-cutter bee. The finial had been decaying internally and this resulted in a chamber and a small connection to the outside. The bees use such cavities as nests. They make cup-like cells with semi-circular pieces of fresh leaves that they cut from nearby plants. The bee then places a pollen-nectar cocktail in each cell, lays an egg on it and builds some more.

Left: A leaf-cutter bee showing pollen accumulating on the abdomen (Source). Right: Rose leaves with circular pieces removed by a leaf-cutter bee (Source)

There are several species of leaf-cutter bees in Maryland, so I can't give a specific name to the bee who built the finial nest. The leaf-cutter bees are all placed in the family Megachilidae and they differ in several ways from the honey and bumble bees (Family Apidae). The megachilids are pretty much all solitary and carry their pollen under their abdomen, rather than on their hind legs, the way apid bees do. The megachilids also include mason bees and resin bees, each group getting its name from some aspect of how they build their nests. 

Nests of three types of megachilid bees (Source). Upper: Leaf-cutter bee. Cells lined and separated using pieces of fresh-cut leaves. Middle: Resin bee. Cells lined and separated by with resin obtained from plants. (One species has been known to use caulk, which turns out not to be good for the bee.) Lower: Mason bee. Cells lined and separated with mud. In all cases, the bees use pre-existing holes. Each cell is provisioned with a mixture of pollen and nectar and the female lays one egg per cell.

I never saw the finial bee, but I recently ran across some mason bees, Osmia sp., that were nesting in the spaces between the tongue & groove joints of some stall boards. These are probably safe from woodpeckers.

Mason bee (Osmia sp.)

We have not yet decided how to memorialize the brood of the finial bee, but we will probably seal up the desecrated chamber with wood filler and repaint. I think that will be our tribute. It's the least we can do. Amen.