Beatrice

Well, Beatrice died. She was a good spider, but I guess her time was up. I've done some research and it appears that female black widows can live for up to a year and a half. We captured her in Oct and she was fairly large then so maybe it was old age. It was quite strange though because she just molted last week. Seems odd that she would soon after just curl up and die. I am suspicious about the bee that I captured and put into her cage two nights prior to her death. I think it was just a carpenter bee or honey bee of some kind. It wasn't aggressive so I'm pretty sure it wasn't some rogue killer bee up from CA. The bee was dead the morning after I put it in there, but that day Beatrice curled up on her log and started to die. The next moring she was belly up in the dirt. Could the bee have stung her??? I don't know and I can't seem to find the answer. In my research I did find that the Mud-Dauber Wasp (pictured below) preys on Black Widows. Interesting.