Carpenter bees are the largest species of wild bees native to us. Characteristic is their bumblebee-like, black-colored appearance and their loud growling. In the following, we would like to take a closer look at what makes the funny fellows so interesting and unique in their way of life.

With its enormous body size, the black carpenter bee is more reminiscent of a hornet

Table of Contents

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  1. the essentials in brief
  2. names
  3. wood bee sting
  4. Usefulness of Carpenter Bees
  5. Dealing with carpenter bees
  6. genus of carpenter bees
  7. Identify carpenter bee species
  8. Local carpenter bee situation
  9. frequently asked Questions

    10. the essentials in brief

    • The carpenter bee (Xylocopa) is also called blue carpenter bee, black carpenter bee or large carpenter bee
    • Carpenter bees are threatened with extinction and are therefore protected
    • Bees can settle in the garden with dead wood or a bee hotel and nectar-rich flowers
    • Carpenter bees are very peaceful, but they can also sting

    Blue, black or large carpenter bee

    Many names, one bee: Behind the names "Blue Carpenter Bee", "Black Carpenter Bee", "Blue Black Carpenter Bee" or "Big Carpenter Bee" is one and the same species of bee: the Xylocopa. It has a black body and blue wings and is significantly larger than its striped relatives, so all names are quite appropriate.

    Can carpenter bees sting?

    Carpenter bees can sting just like any other bee species. However, they do so very rarely and only when they really feel threatened. Carpenter bees are solitary insects and very shy and therefore not very dangerous. If you have had the rare misfortune of being stung by a carpenter bee, treat the sting like any other bee or wasp sting:

    • Remove the sting
    • rub a slice of raw onion on the sting
    • cool the sting
    • A paste of baking soda and water disinfects and cools
    • Essential oils such as clove oil, mint oil or lavender oil disinfect and reduce itching

    digression

    Fight carpenter bees

    Carpenter bees are rare loners and not dangerous. Even those who think they have to protect their wooden roof from carpenter bees can relax: carpenter bees only nest in rotten, soft wood. So there is no reason to fight carpenter bees.

    Usefulness of Carpenter Bees

    Why carpenter bees are on the red list of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation is of course primarily due to their population decline. Stopping this is an imperative of the general diversity of species, which is necessary for a balanced ecological macrosystem in the long term.

    Many protected species are highlighted for their immediate usefulness - this can eventually motivate more private gardeners to get involved in protecting the species in question.

    Of course, the carpenter bee is also an important link in the ecosystem. Like all bees, it also takes on a role as a plant pollinator - but this is only moderately pronounced, because carpenter bees have the habit of acting as so-called nectar robbers. So they have the habit of snatching the nectar from some plant blossoms without giving anything in return: Because they are equipped with strong mandibles, which they are used to using for building nests, they sometimes simply bite through particularly deep, hard-to-reach blossoms - the pollination effect remains possibly along the way.

    Normally, however, carpenter bees do their pollination task very well when collecting nectar. Because of their long tongues, they are particularly specialized in daisy, butterfly and labiate plants. Large carpenter bees like to fly to clary sage lip blossoms or wisteria butterfly blossoms. They don't have to pierce the base of the flower either, so they diligently pollinate the beautiful garden plants. It's nice to see it here:

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    How do you deal with carpenter bees?

    Given the species threat, you should generally welcome carpenter bees in your garden. There's certainly no need to drive them away - even if their large, black and loudly humming presence can be a little disconcerting at first. The animals are by no means particularly dangerous or even harmful.

    In view of the rather poor supply of suitable habitat nationwide, it is commendable if you make an effort to offer the animals a home. You can do this in a number of ways. Above all, it makes sense to create space for possible nesting sites. For example through the following measures:

    • Do not clean up dead wood meticulously
    • If necessary, create a bee hotel

    Leave deadwood in the garden

    If you have an old tree in the garden that is not yet in danger of falling over and does not bother you too much, you should leave it where it is. It not only offers carpenter bees a wonderful basis for creating their nesting tunnels, but also a wide range of living conditions for other insect, mammalian and bird species.

    Since carpenter bees are also very loyal to their location, an old tree in particular offers them an excellent home that they can use again and again. You can also observe the astonishing, eager drilling activity of individual carpenter bees on the trunk.

    Leaving other dead wood, such as broken, rotten branches, is of course also worthwhile for the home of carpenter bees. In order not to let the look of the garden become too rude, you can also cleverly arrange individual, shapely old branches at the edges of beds or on the bank of a garden pond.

    bee hotel

    A bee hotel looks pretty and attracts many beneficial insects to the garden

    If you cultivate a somewhat tidier garden style and want to keep it, we recommend creating an insect hotel or a specific bee hotel. You can design this in such a way that other useful bees can also nest in it. For carpenter bees, the bee hotel should of course be equipped with as much solid but rotted old wood as possible. Older branch discs can also look very decorative with distinctive annual rings and larger cracks. The carpenter bees also find good contact points for their drilling activities in the cracks.

    But carpenter bees also like to use hollow plant stems filled with solid pith as nesting sites. Stalks of Japanese knotweed, reeds or bamboo are recommended. According to the size of the carpenter bees, the cross-section of the stalks should be about 5-9 mm. If you have had carpenter bees in your garden for a long time, you can also use a hole in an old nesting site as a guide when cross-sectioning any plant stems. Some other wild bee species also feel very comfortable in plant stems.

    The genus of carpenter bees

    The carpenter bees, zoologically Xylocopa, are one of three genera within the real bee family. They are closely related to the honey bees from the genus Apinae.

    As is so often the case with names of animal species, their scientific and translated name comes from their way of life: Xylocopa means something like "the wood cutter" - and in fact the carpenter bees intensively work on wood when building their nests. With their powerful mouthparts, they bore tunnels into tree branches and rotten trunks, but sometimes also into wooden parts of human structures such as fence posts.

    How much wood they remove when making their long burrows can be seen from the wood chips that are created under their nesting sites. In areas where they are more numerous, they are sometimes also fought because of their wood-boring activity.

    Taxonomy and Occurrence

    The genus of carpenter bees includes a total of around 500 species within 31 subfamilies worldwide. Most of them live in tropical and subtropical areas, because the animals are extremely warm-loving. Only 8 species have adapted to European climatic conditions, and only 3 species have settled in Central Europe. With the warming climate, carpenter bees can be seen more frequently in our local gardens, although they are generally rare. Carpenter bees have spread noticeably, especially in the southern federal states such as Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Bavaria and Hesse.

    digression

    dovetail

    The general warming of the climate has also paved the way for other large insect species to reach our Central European latitudes: to a similar extent as carpenter bees, for example, pigeon tails have been showing a significantly greater presence here in recent years. Not only the name of the large butterflies is more reminiscent of a small bird than an insect, but also their appearance: because of their wingspan of a good 4 centimetres, their white patterned rear part and their mobile back and forth whizzing flight they have on flowers almost a bit resemblance to a hummingbird.

    The pigeon tail can be found more and more often in our latitudes

    Look

    Carpenter bees are relatively easy to distinguish from other real bees or wild bees. One of the most obvious distinguishing features is, on the one hand, their coloration, which is not black and yellow like some other real bees that laypeople consider typical: rather, most carpenter bee species are characterized by a deep black coloration, often accompanied by metallic shimmering nuances in blue to purple on the body and wings.

    The stature also differs significantly from honey bees or other bee species: carpenter bees have an unusually large and stocky physique, which is similar to that of bumblebees. (Bumblebees are also real bees, by the way)

    way of life

    Carpenter bees have an annual cycle that differs in some respects from that of other solitary bees. First of all, it is unusual for carpenter bees to have both females and drones overwinter. To do this, individually or in groups, they look for a place that is protected from wind, rain and cold, such as a hole they have dug in the ground or a crevice in a wall or wood. The old nest is also sometimes used as winter quarters.

    The new carpenter bee year begins in April. Then, after waking up from hibernation, females and drones come together to mate. The female then begins to create a nesting site individually. To do this, it bores brood tubes into older but still relatively solid wood and sets up around 10 to 15 brood chambers in them. An egg is laid in each of them and supplied with a package of provisions. This consists of a mixture of entered flower pollen, nectar and head gland secretion. Finally, the incubators prepared in this way are closed and the larvae are left to their own devices.

    The larvae continue to develop independently with the food provided. After about 2 months they pupate and become the finished carpenter bee within a few days. As such, they eat their way out of their wooden brood chamber and can begin life as an adult animal.

    The females live relatively long compared to other solitary bees. After hibernating, they often live well into the summer and can watch the development of their offspring. After they hatch, sometimes even a kind of shared flat between generations is set up.

    Here is a small, overview-like profile of the carpenter bees:

    Zoological classification Look Happen way of life Special identification features
    Belong to the real bee family within the suborder of the stinging bees and the suborder of the wasps Compared to other species of real bees, it has a fairly large and bumblebee-like squat body (14 to 28 cm in length), strikingly deep black in color, often covered with a metallic blue to violet shimmer Only 3 species are represented in Central Europe, these mainly in southern to south-eastern countries, in the German-speaking area, especially in Switzerland, in Austria and in Germany in federal states such as Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Saxony, Solitary way of life, i.e. living individually, no formation of colonies, one-year cycle, females and drones both hibernate large, jet black, corpulent appearance, loud hum when flying

    This video shot by the Nabu Thuringia gives an impression of the carpenter bee and its way of life:

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    Identify carpenter bee species

    Large carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea)

    The carpenter bee, zoologically Xylocopa violacea, has several surnames that quickly suggest their own species. In fact, however, the blue carpenter bee, blue-black carpenter bee, purple-winged carpenter bee, and common carpenter bee can be lumped together with the headings 'large carpenter bee' and 'Xylocopa violacea', respectively. Sometimes the species is even called black hornet, because its body size and dark color reminds a little of its larger relatives from the subfamily of real wasps.

    The key identifying features of the large carpenter bee are already defined by the color-defining surnames: their wings are actually criss-crossed by blue to violet shimmering veins. Their abdomen is deep black, roundish like a bumblebee and has dense and short hair, the middle segment of the body, the thorax, is a little lighter and tends to be bluish-grey. Overall, large carpenter bees - as their main name indicates - reach a quite impressive size. They can grow up to 28 millimeters long.

    (Xylocopa iris)

    Like the large carpenter bee, this carpenter bee is one of the few species that are also widespread in Central Europe. It is mainly found in the Mediterranean region, but is also found in the near south-east to Central Asia. Specimens have also been found in certain regions of Switzerland and Austria. Here in Germany, it occurs more in the south, if at all.

    With a body length of 14 to 16 millimeters, the Xylocopa iris remains significantly smaller than the carpenter bee, but in terms of stature it is similarly stocky and bumblebee-like. Their whole body is jet black, the abdomen shimmers slightly in metallic, sometimes greenish blue.

    Eastern carpenter bee (Xylocopa valga)

    The Xylocopa valga has long, black feelers

    The species Xylocopa valga is known in German as the eastern or black feeler carpenter bee. It is the third (and last) species found in central Europe. It is particularly widespread in southern to south-eastern Central European countries such as Italy, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia or Greece. In Germany, the eastern carpenter bee has been isolated in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Saxony.

    In terms of appearance, it resembles the carpenter bee in certain aspects, above all it has a similarly thick, bumblebee-like and black-colored abdomen and, like the Xylocopa violacea, reaches a total length of up to 28 centimeters. A characteristic feature, which is also recorded in one of the trivial names of this species, are the striking and consistently deep black antennae. The wings are black with a metallic, bluish tinge.

    Other species found in Europe:

    Not directly in Germany, but in the wider European area, especially in the Balkans, the following carpenter bee species are represented:

    • Xylocopa cantabrita
    • Xylocopa amedaei
    • Xylocopa gracilis
    • Xylocopa olivieri
    • Xylocopa uclesiensis

    Interesting to know:

    Some of these "non-German" carpenter bee species show a somewhat more typical bee appearance to our eyes. The Xylocopa cantabrita and the ylocopa olivieri, for example, have an approximately black and yellow striped coloration like the honey bees instead of a metallic black color. However, the striped markings are usually not as pronounced and the colors tend to be more brownish-reddish. Their physique is also corpulent and large, like carpenter bees, with a length of about 18 to 22 millimeters.

    The Xylocopa cantabrita is mainly found on the Spanish peninsula and is therefore commonly known as the Spanish carpenter bee.

    Situation of carpenter bees in Germany

    The question of how things are with us carpenter bees is of course justified in times of increasingly urgent species protection. In view of the general decline in plant and animal species diversity, we are also taking a close look at the situation of carpenter bees.

    The matter is actually double-edged. On the one hand, the carpenter bee is one of the endangered species threatened with extinction in this country. In particular, the carpenter bee, which occurs most frequently in our region, is on the so-called red list of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. So she's been under careful observation for a long time.

    The decline in local carpenter bee species is mainly due to the lack of suitable habitat. As we've already learned, carpenter bees prefer dead wood to build their nest burrows.However, the many overly tidy gardens in this country offer little of this, and even in the agricultural and forestry sectors, more and more space is no longer left to chance or nature. Dead wood that is simply left lying around is a rarity, but an important basis for the life of carpenter bees and many other small animal species.

    On the other hand, however, a certain renewed spread of the species can also be observed: because the summers are becoming ever hotter and the winters ever milder, warmth-loving insect species are penetrating the carpenter bees further and further into northern regions. Despite their increased occurrence in the southern parts of the country, it is also possible that you will see one or the other carpenter bee in northern German areas such as Brandenburg, NRW or Lower Saxony.

    frequently asked Questions

    Can carpenter bees be dangerous?

    Given their size, mysterious black coloring, and loud buzzing, carpenter bees might not seem entirely kosher to some gardeners. Of course, also because the sight of them is still rather rare and almost a bit more exotic.

    In general, carpenter bees are among the less dangerous species within the real bee family. This is due to their solitary, i.e. individually living, way of life. Basically, solitary stinging insects have less reason to sting, because the defense of a state as a defensive situation is no longer necessary. Socially living species, i.e. species that form large colonies, such as German wasps, hornets or honey bees, have to protect an entire colony in order to preserve the species and therefore simply have more surface to attack.

    Solitary species such as carpenter bees, on the other hand, are only dependent on their sting when they are attacked as individuals, for example when foraging for food. It is therefore quite rare for them to sting. The secretion in their sting is also no more toxic than that of honey bees. In order to avoid a sting, you should leave a carpenter bee alone and not harass it.

    Are carpenter bees protected or endangered?

    In Germany, the carpenter bee has the status of "particularly protected" under the Federal Nature Conservation Act. Impairing, catching or killing carpenter bees is therefore prohibited and will be prosecuted.

    So approach the animals carefully! Instead of driving them away, create the living conditions that are increasingly being taken away from them in the wild by designing your garden in a natural way, leaving dead wood lying around and, if necessary, building a nesting aid.

Category:

Animals in the garden