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Overview

Small, dark, and nearly hairless, the unassuming Ceratina bees resemble ants. They are often metallic, with color patterns ranging from bright green to red. The female of this species is usually black with a bright yellow vertical stripe between her eyes. Such a facial oddity is not common among any bees except the Ceratina. The Ceratina build unlined homes in twigs and stems, using the internal partitions of the pith to build their chambered nests. Not the social one, these little carpenter bees were once thought to be solitary, the mothers never tending their young. Although this has been proven incorrect, current belief is that no more than one unrelated female is ever found in one nest. Experts think that mothers and daughters may live together and form a sort of "queen-worker" relationship, similar to Bombus.

Index

Phylogeny

Index

References

• Michener, Charles D. The Bees of the World. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland. ISBN: 0-8018-6133-0
• Mitchell, Theodore B. Bees of the Eastern United States Volume II. The North Carolina Agricultural Experient Station, North Carolina.

Index

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Becca Haynes for help photographing bees and developing the bee pages, Nancy Lowe for bee illustrations, Cecil Smith and the University of Georgia's Natural History Museum Entomology Collections for loaning us specimens, and Sam Droege, USGS-BRD, for support and encouragement.

Discover Life | All Living Things | Insecta | Hymenoptera | Apoidea | Apidae | Ceratina