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Large Carpenter bee (male)
Xylocopa virginica
34.4597, -93.0508
Field Notes
Description:
Carpenter bees are black, and they have yellow hairs on the thorax and first abdominal segment. Adults differ from bumble bees in that they are not social, the upper surface of the abdomen in mostly devoid of hairs, and the females have a brush of hairs on the hind leg instead of a pollen basket. Male carpenter bees have white faces, but females have dark faces.
Habitat:
Spotted nectaring on garden flowers in an urban area next to a forest.
Notes:
Carpenter bees nest in tunnels in sound wood of dead trees and in structural timbers. They use both soft and hard woods, but they seem to prefer pines. They rarely cause significant damage. Both sexes pass the winter in old nest tunnels. Adult bees take pollen and nectar from a wide variety of native and introduced plant species. The female furnishes each cell in her nest with a mixture of pollen and regurgitated nectar and lays an egg on top of it. She then seals the cell with a partition made from chewed wood pulp. A new generation of adult bees emerges in late summer.
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