Violet Carpenter Bee

• Both males and females overwinter as adults, unusual among bees.
• It bores its own nesting tunnels in dead wood without eating it.
• It has been recorded visiting as many as 800 plant species, favouring legumes and mints.
• It is one of the largest bees in Europe, and its flight produces an unmistakable deep buzz. Its blue-black colour and iridescent violet wings make it easy to identify.
• It excavates galleries in dead wood with its mandibles, hence the carpenter name. It does not eat wood: it removes it to make cells where it deposits pollen and an egg.
• It is solitary, but several females may share the same trunk, and daughters sometimes reuse their mother's gallery.
• It robs nectar: in flowers with a long, narrow corolla, instead of entering from the front it pierces the base of the flower and drinks the nectar without pollinating. Other bees later take advantage of the hole.
• It is harmless and very reluctant to sting; its size frightens more than its behaviour does.
• Its range is shifting northwards with the warming climate, and in recent decades it has become established in southern England.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Sunny woodland, gardens and Mediterranean country of Europe, spreading north and into Asia, nesting in dead wood

Birth weight

An egg large relative to the female's body, among the largest known in any insect

Size at birth

A larva 2-3 cm long once mature, fed on a mixture of pollen and nectar (bee bread)

Sexual maturity

Reached once metamorphosis is complete, in the spring after emergence

Gestation / incubation

Full development from egg to adult in roughly 7 weeks (2 months according to another source)

Litter / clutch size

7 to 8 eggs per nest on average, one to each cell cut into the wood

Sources consulted: Buzzaboutbees; AcademicPath; Biology Insights; The Carpenter Bee (Penntybio); Ohioline; HubPages; Biocommunication Group; Wildlife Natural