- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Most of its prey are honey bees, sunflower bees or hover flies foraging in the nearby lavender.
One wrap, however, looked like it contained a huge black bee, the Valley carpenter bee. It was either that or a bumble bee!
We decided to find out. With a toothpick, we borrowed the prey from the spider (it already had 21 wrapped prey and wouldn't miss it).Taking a toothpick, we carefully pulled back the sticky silk cover.
Yes, it was a Valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta), a female. The Xylocopa varipuncta females are solid black while the males are blond with green eyes. You've probably seen these bees buzzing around your yard or in a park. The largest bees in California, they're about an inch long. They're named the "Valley carpenter bee" because they're common in the Central Valley.
They're pollinators but some folks consider them pests. Using their mandibles, the females tunnel through wood, such as fence posts and telephone poles, to make their nests. They prefer untreated wood so if you varnish your wood, they'll probably look elsewhere. They do not ingest the wood. Sometimes they'll drill a hole in a dead or dying tree.
This one apparently couldn't exit the sticky web before the predator approached it and delivered its venomous bite.
Fortunately, it wasn't the yellow-faced bumble bee we've seen nectaring on the butterfly bush!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We all take shortcuts.
We look for the shortest line at the supermarket, we use keyboard shortcuts, and we text ”how r u?”
So, why shouldn't honey bees use shortcuts? They do.
If you've ever watched a carpenter bee drill a hole in the corolla of a tubed flower to get at the nectar—this is "nectar robbing" or bypassing pollination—you may have seen a honey bee come along and sip nectar from the hole. Why work hard to get at the nectar when it's right there for the taking?
This is the insect version of a convenience market!
Take the foxgloves (family Plantaginaceae, genus Digitalis). Sometimes you'll see a honey bee trailing or shadowing a carpenter bee that moves from corolla to corolla.
Short cut to the nectar!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Valley carpenter bees are passionate about passionflower vines (Passiflora).
You see these black bees foraging on the blossoms. Tiny grains of golden pollen, looking like gold dust, dot the thorax.
Their loud buzz frightens many a person, but wait, they're pollinators.
Valley carpenter bees (Xylocopa varipuncta) are found in the Central Valley and southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and southward through Mexico, according to native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis.
These carpenter bees are large (about the size of a queen bumble bee). The females are solid black, while the males are golden/buff-colored with green eyes.
We receive scores of calls about "golden bumble bees." They're the male Valley carpenter bees, sometimes nicknamed "Teddy bears."
The females are the only ones we've seen in the passionflower vines, though.
The males? They must be cruising somewhere else, patrolling for females.
Most of the time we see female Gulf Fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanillae) laying their eggs on the leaves, and male Gulf Frits searching for females.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A gold rush of sorts.
When the female Valley carpenter bees forage among the passion flowers (Passiflora), they turn from solid black to a mixture of gold and black.
The pollen on their head, thorax and abdomen stands out like magical gold dust, as if sprinkled by the Good Fairy.
On a recent photo expedition in west Vacaville, we watched Gulf Fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanilla) colonize a passionflower vine (Passiflora incaranata). Meanwhile, these huge Valley carpenter bees buzzed in and out of the purple-centered white flowers.
A golden opportunity, to be sure.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Just wanna be your teddy bear..."
When Elvis Presley sang that, his fans swooned.
Well, there are bee fans that can't get enough of the "teddy bear" bee, aka the male Valley carpenter bee (Xylocopa varipuncta).
It's often called a "golden bumble bee." Golden, it is. Bumble bee, it is not.
The female of this carpenter bee species is solid black.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, spotted this male Valley carpenter bee yesterday in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research at UC Davis. He does research in the half-acre bee friendly garden. (By the way, it's located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus, and is open from dawn to dusk. There's no admission.)
We at UC Davis periodically receive phone calls about "golden bumble bees." The green-eyed, golden-haired carpenter bee does attract a lot of attention.
"Oh, let me be, your teddy bear."
Or better yet, let me "bee" your teddy bear.