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Overview

Xylocopa bees are large and stout. In North America their usual coloration is a mixture of yellow and black hairs like their common cousin, the bumblebee. The easiest way to tell a Xylocopa from a bumblebee is the presence of patchy, bald spots on the Xylocopa abdomen. They are generally larger than bumblebees as well. Xylocopa are commonly viewed as pests in the southern United States because of their unique nesting habits. They will chew out nests in wood, whether that wood is a dead tree in the forest or the eaves on some unlucky human's house. These nests are branches of cells that the female carves out for her progeny. As there is no caste system as in bumblebees, Xylocopa young are tended by their mother. These bees are incredibly maternal, laying only about ten eggs to maximize the potential for each young bee to receive the best of care. Daughters usually stay in the nest with their mother.

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Phylogeny

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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.

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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 | Xylocopa