California carpenter bee
The California carpenter bee is a big, all-black bee with a blue-green shine. It is called a carpenter because it digs its nest in wood, like a little woodworker. It lives in hot, dry places and can fly when it is far too hot for most other insects.
How big is it?
How long is it?
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How fast is it?
Fun facts
To get pollen out of some flowers, it holds on and shakes its whole body very fast, so the pollen falls out like salt from a shaker.
Sometimes it cheats: it chews a hole in the side of a flower and drinks the nectar without helping the flower.
It chews a tunnel in wood or in dry yucca and agave stems, then digs left and right to make a T-shaped nest. It does not eat the wood.
Boy bees hover near nests and chase other boys away.
Most asked questions about California carpenter bee
?Do carpenter bees eat wood?
No. They chew tunnels in wood to make a nest, but they eat nectar and pollen.
?How big is a California carpenter bee?
It is a big bee, about 1,3 to 3 centimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Xylocopa californica
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Western carpenter bee
Where the facts come from
- California carpenter bee (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Mike. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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