That’s not Bob... that builder is a... Bee!? (Carpenter Bees)

This week we are looking at a unique solitary bee that exclusively makes its homes in wood! Carpenter bees are some of the largest bees on the planet, but that's not what makes them so unique. Support the show :) -> https://www.patreon.com/user?u=46499107 IG: https://www.instagram.com/insects4fun/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100085443614825 Email: Insectsfordummies@gmail.com This week's artists: HM Surf, Ghostrifter Official, and S N U G. Transcript: Welcome to episode 37 of Insects for Fun! Where we dive into an insect themed topic every Tuesday. This week we’ll be looking at Bear Bees. Carpenter bees are species of bees within the genus Xylocopa and there are around 500 of them! They often get confused with bumble bees, because both tend to be very large, but a good rule of thumb is that carpenter bees have a shiny bum and by that I mean their abdomen is not usually covered in dense hairs the way bumble bees are. Most carpenter bees are black too, but this is not always the case! Here in Japan we have a really cute carpenter bee known as a Kumabachi which literally translates to bear bee and they can be found hovering still in the air around trees of interest. The thorax on these bees are covered in dense orangey-yellow hairs with a black head and abdomen so when you see them hovering they look like they’re wearing a yellow vest. Carpenter bees can be found worldwide and all of them make burrows in trees or other hard wood surfaces, which can be troublesome if you happen to be in the field of woodworking, but these bees are actually pretty docile and won’t attack you unless you REALLY provoke them (insert mocking cartoon sound). Another thing is that the males don’t have stingers, but this is the case for all male bees and wasps. What’s different though is that male carpenter bees like to patrol an area where a female is nesting, and they will fly up to anything moving within its territory. These bees are all bark and no bite though, so you can simply walk away and they’ll move on. The females have stingers but they’re mostly concerned with making their nesting hole, and won’t be actively chasing you or flying around the same way males are. Now I happen to have a lot of carpenter bees at the high school I teach at in Japan, and I always see the males hovering around in the public garden. I also happen to enjoy the outdoors and walk through that garden, and sometimes I do get dive bombed by male carpenter bees. They straight up stare you down and then zoom at you. I haven’t actually stood still to see if they’ll hit me or not though.. Male bees will also have aerial battles which can sometimes result in them tumbling to the ground until one of them finally gives up and flies away. Carpenter bees are solitary, and as a result they don’t have a hive mentality at all. In fact females oftentimes will be living alone in a small chamber carved out of wood. Sometimes female bees will live in the same shelter, but it's usually not communal. Basically if there is limited availability for housing in a location then multiple female carpenter bees will make holes near each other while still remaining separate. Think of this as like a log motel or something like that where they all have their own rooms or halls if the tree or location has multiple suitable sites. Recent research has actually shown us that sometimes female carpenter bees will work together under the rule of one female, and this head of the house female will not only provide food for her young but also to the other females that are helping her with her nest. This isn’t out of charity though, the bees are simply next in line waiting to take over the nesting site when the head of the house dies or moves on. Now let's talk about what they use for housing along with what the inside of a nest looks like because it's not your average bee home. In the spring female carpenter bees will begin scavenging for wooden structures like b