Large Carpenter Bees – Xylocopa spp.

Large Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa spp.)

Latin Name: Xylocopa spp.

Common Name: Large Carpenter Bees

Appearance:

• The larger Xylocopa carpenter bees bore into wooden beams or logs without bark. Still, Ceratina carpenter bees generally bore into broken stems of weeds or the freshly picked stems of roses. Small carpenter bees may wreak havoc on rose growers when the branch dies back to the depth of the nest, which is an uncommon occurrence. The depth of the nest varies between 14 and 12 inches.
• Large carpenter bees are distinguished from bumble bees by the absence of pubescence on the dorsum of the abdomen, which is somewhat glossy. A molar gap (found in bumble bees) and the triangular second sub marginal cell are absent.

Territory:

 It is found throughout Florida and most of the eastern United States.

Damages caused by large carpenter bees:

The large Xylocopa carpenter bees dig into non-barked wooden beams or logs, and the bees chew nesting chambers in natural wood, stumps, records, or dead tree limbs. Carpenter bees often make tunneling to breach the interior of timber. Dashes, spots, and trenches are examples of this type of damage. Carpenter bees, unlike termites, do not have to be concerned about being exposed to air outside of their tunnels.

Description of Sap Suckers:

Sapsuckers are a species of woodpecker found in North America. Sapsucker wells are immediately identifiable. With its chisel-like beak, the bird drills a dozen or more tiny holes in a horizontal line, each less than half an inch apart. Then it returns to suck up the sap that has trickled out again. The bird produces the second row of holes slightly above the first when the flow begins to wane, generally after a few days. A sapsucker at work is identified by a rectangular pattern of nicely spaced holes in tree bark. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is the most common. It lives in Canada’s and Alaska’s frigid evergreen woods. It migrates east of the Rockies and spends the winter in the Southeast United States.

Life history and Habits:

A female bee excavates a tiny cell and fills it with a bit of ball of pollen moistened with nectar after boring downward. Then lays an egg on the pollen ball, seals the compartment with chewed-up pith, and builds a new cell closer to the nest entrance. This cell is equipped with a pollen ball, which she will deposit her next egg. Several cells are built, each with a single pollen ball onto which an egg is deposited. The eggs hatch shortly after, and the small legless grubs eat and molt as they age. Finally, the fares reach adulthood and pupate inside their cells. After a few weeks, a new generation of bees emerges.