What level of parental care is provided after the female Anthidium manicatum seals the brood cells?
She abandons the nest entirely after provisioning and sealing every individual cell, offering no further parental care.
The reproductive strategy of the solitary female Wool Carder Bee involves a finite commitment to nest provisioning, after which all parental responsibility ceases. After building several individual brood cells within a cavity, she sequentially lays a single egg in each, ensures it is provisioned with a mixture of nectar and pollen for future larval consumption, and seals the cell using the collected plant fluff. Once the final cell is provisioned and sealed, the female leaves the nest site permanently. There is no subsequent return to guard the developing brood, feed the emerging larvae, or provide any form of post-hatching care, meaning the immature stages must rely entirely on the stored provisions.
