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Bug Spotlight!
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U.C. Riverside
Department of Entomology |
Photo
by: ©
Rick Vetter |
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 "Carpenter
Bees" Order Hymenoptera Family Apidae, genus Xylocopa
Prepared
by Doug Yanega, photos © Rick Vetter
These
bees have a tendency to scare people because of their large size and the
territorial behavior of the males (which do not sting), which will
investigate virtually any moving object within their field of vision. In
reality, about the only way to be stung by one is to grab a female in
one's hand and squeeze, as they are totally non-aggressive. Females are
solitary, each making her own private tunnel into dry wood, where she
carves out one to several branches of the tunnel, dividing them into
series of "cells" (small chambers set off by partitions made
of wood fragments). Into each cell she places a mass of pollen mixed
with nectar, upon which she lays a single large egg, which hatches into
a larva after she seals the partition. The larvae feed for a few weeks,
and then may or may not enter a resting prepupal stage (depending on the
species, the climate, and the time of year) before pupating and emerging
as an adult after about two weeks as a pupa. In California, the three
common species are Xylocopa varipuncta (above), X tabaniformis,
and X californica. The first species is most common in Southern
California, and has all-black females with bluish wings (with metallic
reflections; above, left), but the males are golden-brown (above,
right); the second species has smaller black females, and the males are
grayish with light faces; the last species resembles a bumblebee
somewhat, though the females have darker yellowish hair on the thorax
and the abdomen has definite blue or blue-green metallic tints to it.
All carpenter bees can be easily differentiated from bumblebees by the
relatively bare and shining dorsal surface of the abdomen, and the way
they carry the pollen on the entire hind leg, instead of with the pollen
concentrated in a single compact mass in a "pollen basket" as
in bumblebees. Generally speaking, the damage they do is only cosmetic;
it is very rare for them to remove enough wood to cause structural
problems.
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