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 & environment

Sunny woodland, gardens and Mediterranean country of Europe, spreading north and into Asia, nesting in dead wood up to 2 cm below the surface

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