Overwintering imagines appear in spring and mate in May to June. The females cut and roll hazel leaves (sometimes also leaves of other trees like alder (Alnus) or birch (Betula)) to form a cigar-shaped hiding place ("cradle") for the larvae. They usually also damage the median leaf vein, i.e. the leaves later wilt in order to be more easily digested by the larvae, but they do not disrupt the leaf veins completely to prevent the leaf from becoming dry and hard or falling off. The female bites a hole into the rolled leaf and deposits up to 6 eggs (but usually only 1 per leaf) into the roll. It may take several weeks until the females have deposited all their eggs in a high number of rolled leaves. The larvae hatching from these eggs remain in the rolled leave, feed from the leaf tissue and finally pupate still within the leaf roll. The next generation of imagines hatch starting from June. They remain on the host plant until autumn and then overwinter dug in the soil. A partial second generation may be produced by these imagines in the summer; these larvae do not complete metamorphosis in the same year, but overwinter in the fallen-off rolled leaves and then pupate in spring. The habitat of this species is hedges and deciduous forests, wherever the food plants occur (also parks and gardens).
The present species is attacked by a number of hymenopteran parasites. So far recorded are: Ichneumonidae: Gelis acarorum, Gregopimpla flavipes, Gregopimpla inquisitor, Scambus calobatus, Scambus longiventris, Scambus planatus. Braconidae: Blacus maculipes. Encyrtidae: Copidosoma flavomaculatum. Eulophidae: Achrysocharoides cilla. Trichogrammatidae: Poropoea stollwerckii (Rheinheimer and Hassler 2010).