Short Description
The violet carpenter bee is a very large bee species. Its body is bumblebee-like, black and has a metallic shine. The wings shimmer dark blue.
Males and females are very similar and hardly distinguishable.
Features
Violet carpenter bee
Xylocopa violacea
Black
Wing with blue iridescence
In the city
In the city, they find many different nesting opportunities in parks and semi-natural gardens, such as dead tree trunks or wooden beams. They prefer sunny locations. They are very site-loyal, i.e. they usually nests again in the place where they grew up.
To support these bees, it is useful to leave large pieces of dead wood and distribute old beams and tree discs as nesting aids.
Fun Facts
They fly from March to October
The violet carpenter bee is the largest wild bee species found in Germany.
As is the case for all wild bee species, they are under conservation protection.
They are not limited to one type of flower, but use the flowers available to them.
They are solitary bees and do not have a large swarm.
Female wood bees gnaw a tunnel into a piece of wood and lay their eggs there.
- Endangerment level Germany: not endangered
Sources
Violet carpenter bee - Xylocopa violacea - on the flowers of a vetch. Recorded in Beuel., Axel Kirch, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2019-08-24-bonn-blaue-holzbiene05.jpg
Violet carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea) in the botanical garden Jardins des Martels, MathieuMD , CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jardin_des_Martels_-_Abeille_-_2016-08-07_-_03.jpg
Nesting tunnel in dead wood, Clematis, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xylocopa_tunnel.jpg?uselang=de
Seite "Holzbienen: Xylocopa violacea ". In: wildbienen.de. URL: https://www.wildbienen.de/eb-xviol.htm(Abgerufen: 26.05.2023).
Seite „Große Holzbiene“. In: Wikipedia – Die freie Enzyklopädie. Bearbeitungsstand: 10. Mai 2023, 13:01 UTC. URL: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gro%C3%9Fe_Holzbiene&oldid=233608528 (Abgerufen: 26. Mai 2023, 11:02 UTC)