Spider and bee

When I recently went away for couple weeks, I left a matching small and large spider sharing a web near my front door. When I got home there was only the bigger spider there. It's doubled in size and is quite lovely -- in a creepy sort of way, with a velvety grey abdomen, a black and white speckled thorax and a little black heat. And the web is delicate and simply gorgeous in the misty rain. I'll try and get a photo if we get some rain or mist later.

I photographed it this morning in the process of devouring a bee. You can see the bee hanging in the web at the bottom of this pic. It's been there for at least a week.

Today, as I was watching, the spider made its move, gathering in the nicely ripened bee.

And the poor old bee is now history.

I'm wondering how large the spider will get. And also whether the smaller web-mate that was there went the same way as the bee...

And whether the spider, only a foot away from the path to my door, will deter door-to-door sales people. :)

Or maybe my friends. :(