Carpenter bees
Carpenter bee (X. tabaniformis) on Salvia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Hymenoptera Suborder: Apocrita Superfamily: Apoidea Family: Apidae Subfamily: Xylocopinae Tribe: Xylocopini
Genera
Xylocopa (31 subgenera) Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... Species THC see List of Salvia species Salvia is a genus in the mint family, Lamiaceae. ... Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. ... “Animalia” redirects here. ... Subphyla and Classes Subphylum Trilobitomorpha Trilobita - Trilobites (extinct) Subphylum Chelicerata Arachnida - Spiders, Scorpions, etc. ... Orders Subclass Apterygota Symphypleona - globular springtails Subclass Archaeognatha (jumping bristletails) Subclass Dicondylia Monura - extinct Thysanura (common bristletails) Subclass Pterygota Diaphanopteroidea - extinct Palaeodictyoptera - extinct Megasecoptera - extinct Archodonata - extinct Ephemeroptera (mayflies) Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) Infraclass Neoptera Blattodea (cockroaches) Mantodea (mantids) Isoptera (termites) Zoraptera Grylloblattodea Dermaptera (earwigs) Plecoptera (stoneflies) Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets... Suborders Apocrita Symphyta Hymenoptera is one of the larger orders of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. ... Superfamilies Apoidea Ceraphronoidea Chalcidoidea Chrysidoidea Cynipoidea Evanioidea Ichneumonoidea Megalyroidea Proctotrupoidea Sphecoidea Stephanoidea Triganalyoidea Vespoidea Many families, see article Apocrita is a suborder of insects in the order Hymenoptera. ... Families Andrenidae Anthophoridae Apidae Colletidae Ctenoplectridae Halictidae Heterogynaidae Megachilidae Melittidae Oxaeidae Sphecidae Stenotritidae This article is about the insect. ... Subfamilies Apinae - Honeybees Bombinae - Bumblebees Euglossinae - Orchid bees Meliponinae - Stingless bees Nomadinae Xylocopinae - Carpenter bees The Apidae are a large family of bees, comprising the common honeybees, stingless bees (which are also cultured for honey), carpenter bees, and bumblebees. ... Genera Many Carpenter bees (Xylocopinae subfamily) are important pollinators, especially of open-faced flowers, though they are also known to rob nectar by boring holes in the sides of flowers with deep corollas (thus not accomplishing pollination). ... For other uses of the word, please see Genus (disambiguation). ...

Carpenter bees (the genus Xylocopa in the subfamily Xylocopinae) are large, hairy bees distributed worldwide. There are some 500 species of carpenter bee in 31 subgenera.^[1] Their name comes from the fact that nearly all species except those in the subgenus Proxylocopa, which nest in the ground, build their nests in burrows in dead wood, bamboo, or structural timbers. Members of the related tribe Ceratinini are sometimes referred to as "Small Carpenter Bees".

Characteristics

In several species, the females live in tunnels alongside their own daughters or sisters, creating a sort of social group. They use wood bits to form partitions between the cells in the nest. A few species bore holes in wood dwellings and earn the enmity of some homeowners, though others regard them as pets. Male bees are seen hovering around the nest, and will approach nearby animals. However, the male is harmless since it does not have a stinger.^[2] Female bees do have a stinger, but are preoccupied with foraging and will only return to the nest to stockpile. Female bees are not aggressive, and will not sting unless directly provoked. Since the tunnels are near the surface, structural damage is generally minor or nonexistent. A building at Cornell University possibly containing nests since the early-1930s, with very heavy nesting between 1966 and 1995, is still sound in 2006.^{[citation needed]} Carpenter bees can be important pollinators on open-faced flowers, though many species are also known to "rob" nectar by slitting the sides of flowers with deep corollas. Cornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA. Its two medical campuses are in New York City and Education City, Qatar. ... Face The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ... A pollinator is the agent that moves pollen from the male anthers of a flower to the female stigma of a flower to accomplish fertilization or syngamy of the female gamete in the ovule of the flower by the male gamete from the pollen grain. ... In Greek mythology, nectar and ambrosia are the food of the gods. ... Corolla can be: A Latin-language term for crown The Toyota Corolla, a model of automobile manufactured by Toyota The corolla is one whorl of the perianth of a flower and composed of petals The town of Corolla, North Carolina This is a disambiguation page, a list of pages that...

X. tabaniformis male robbing nectar

In the United States, there are two eastern species, Xylocopa virginica, and Xylocopa micans, and three other species that are primarily western in distribution. X. virginica is by far the more widely distributed species.^[3] Some are often mistaken for a bumblebee species, as they can be similar in size and coloration, though most carpenter bees have a shiny abdomen, while in bumblebees the abdomen is completely clothed with dense hair. Males of some species have a white or yellow face, where the females do not; males also often have much larger eyes than the females, which relates to their mating behavior. Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... Binomial name Xylocopa virginica Linnaeus, 1771 Subspecies The common Eastern carpenter bee, (Xylocopa virginica), is the carpenter bee most often encountered in the eastern United States. ... Species more than 250 species and subspecies in 37 subgenera Bumblebees (also spelled bumble bee, also known as humblebee) are flying insects of the genus Bombus in the family Apidae. ...

Many Old World carpenter bees have a special pouch-like structure on the inside of their first metasomal tergite called the acarinarium where certain species of mites (Dinogamasus spp.) reside as commensals. The exact nature of the relationship is not fully understood, though in other bees that carry mites, the mites are beneficial, feeding either on fungi in the nest, or on other, harmful mites. The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans, Asians, and Africans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia, and Africa (collectively known as Africa-Eurasia), plus surrounding islands. ... Scorpion anatomy: 1 = Prosoma; 2 = Mesosoma; 3 = Metasoma The metasoma is clearly visible on this ant: it is the posterior section, including the petiole The metasoma is the posterior part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma... A tergum (pl. ... An acarinarium is a specialized anatomical structure which is adapted to facilitate the retention of mites on the body of an organism, typically a bee or a wasp. ... Look up mite in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Commensalism is an interaction between two living organisms, where one organism benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped. ... Divisions Chytridiomycota Zygomycota Ascomycota Basidiomycota The Fungi (singular: fungus) are a large group of organisms ranked as a kingdom within the Domain Eukaryota. ...

Behavior

Castings due to hibernaculum cleaning and preparation

Carpenter bees are traditionally considered solitary bees, though some species have simple social nests in which mothers and daughters may cohabit. However, even solitary species tend to be gregarious, and often several will nest near each other. It has been occasionally reported that when females cohabit, there may be a division of labor between them, where one female may spend most of her time as a guard within the nest, motionless and near the entrance, while another female spends most of her time foraging for provisions.^{[citation needed]} Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1280 × 960 pixel, file size: 560 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)PixOnTrax I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (1280 × 960 pixel, file size: 560 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)PixOnTrax I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ...

Carpenter bees make nests by tunneling into wood, vibrating their bodies as they rasp their mandibles against the wood, each nest having a single entrance which may have many adjacent tunnels. Carpenter bees do not eat wood. They discard the bits of wood, or re-use particles to build partitions between cells. The tunnel functions as a nursery for brood and the pollen/nectar upon which the brood subsists. The provision masses of some species are among the most complex in shape of any group of bees; whereas most bees fill their brood cells with a soupy mass, and others form simple spheroidal pollen masses, Xylocopa form elongate and carefully sculpted masses that have several projections which keep the bulk of the mass from coming into contact with the cell walls, sometimes resembling an irregular caltrop. The eggs are very large relative to the size of the female, and are some of the largest eggs among all insects. The mandible (from Latin mandibÅ­la, jawbone) or inferior maxillary bone is, together with the maxilla, the largest and strongest bone of the face. ... In mathematics, a spheroid is a quadric surface in three dimensions obtained by rotating an ellipse about one of its principal axes. ... Caltrop used by the Office of Strategic Services. ...

There are two very different mating systems that appear to be common in carpenter bees, and often this can be determined simply by examining specimens of the males of any given species. Species in which the males have large eyes are characterized by a mating system where the males either search for females by patrolling, or by hovering and waiting for passing females, whom they then pursue. In the other type of mating system, the males often have very small heads, but there is a large, hypertrophied glandular reservoir in the mesosoma, which releases pheromones into the airstream behind the male while it flies or hovers. The pheromone advertises the presence of the male to females.^[4] In sociobiology and behavioural ecology, the term mating system is used to describe the ways in which animal societies are structured in relation to sexual behavior. ... Human submaxillary gland. ... Scorpion anatomy: 1 = Prosoma; 2 = Mesosoma; 3 = Metasoma The mesosoma is clearly visible on this ant: it is the midlle section, in between the head and the petiole The mesosoma is the middle part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other... Fanning honeybee exposes Nasonov gland (white-at tip of abdomen) releasing pheromone to entice swarm into an empty hive A pheromone is any chemical or set of chemicals produced by a living organism that transmits a message to other members of the same species. ...

Guarding the hibernaculum Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (3264 × 2448 pixel, file size: 2. ...

Japanese carpenter bee Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x768, 234 KB) Summary Japanese Carpenter Bee Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1. ...

Carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta), male, common in Southern California Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 532 pixelsFull resolution (1435 × 954 pixel, file size: 508 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Male carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta) I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ...

European carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea) Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1024 × 768 pixel, file size: 230 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Genera Xylocopa (31 subgenera) Carpenter bees (the genus Xylocopa in the subfamily Xylocopinae) are large, hairy bees distributed worldwide. ...

References

1. ^ Minckley, R.L. 1998. A cladistic analysis and classification of the subgenera and genera of the large carpenter bees, tribe Xylocopini (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Scientific Papers, Natural History Museum, University of Kansas 9:1-47
2. ^ University of Kentucky Entomology: Carpenter Bees
3. ^ [1]
4. ^ Minckley, R.L., Buchmann, S.L., Wcislo, W.T. 1991. Bioassay evidence for a sex attractant pheromone in the large carpenter bee, Xylocopa varipuncta (Anthophoridae: Hymenoptera). J. Zool. Soc. London 224: 285-291

External links

• Close-up photos of a carpenter bee - taken near the town of Chavarillo, Veracruz, Mexico