Despite most bees dying off over winter (with the larvae surviving as the nest generation), here in the 'Sunny State' I'm still seeing native bees in June. I was SO thrilled to find one of Australia's biggest bees, Xylocopa (Koptortosoma) aruana, visiting Eranthemum flowers in my garden!
This is a female - the sexes are dimorphic, like in most species, and it is very easy to tell them apart. Unlike the females, the males don't have a glossy black abdomen, and instead are golden all over.
The couples pair up, the females finding the males through the sexy pheremones the males emit and they flaunt their stuff, each male setting up a territory high in the canopy.
Xylocopa are "carpenter bees", and make their nests by chewing through wood. The females do this by carving nest burrows in timber or pithy stems using their strong ‘mandibles’. Known nesting trees and shrubs include:
Casuarinas
Ficus species
Lophostemon grandiflorus
Leptospermum species
Terminalia catana
Annona muricata (soursop tree)
dead branches on mango
Frangipani and jacaranda trees
dead Eucalyptus robusta saplings
Banksias
dead flower stalks of grass trees (Xanthorrhoea species).
Xylocopa (Koptortosoma) species are not solitary, but also not eusocial like honeybees. They have a social structure known as 'para-social': a founding female will make a nest, but females of subsequent generations - her daughters - may inhabit the same nest, and the founding female may even feed her daughters.
Xylocopa are also capable of 'buzz pollination' - something Apis mellifera, the European honeybee, cannot do. They are therefore capable of sonicating the poricidal anthers to release the pollen of plants like Senna, Hibbertia, Dianella, and exotic plants like tomatoes. You can tell when the females are sonicating (only the females do this as they are the only ones to collect pollen) because they curl their body around the anthers, vibrate her wing muscles vigorously, which 'buzzes' the plant at the right frequency, resulting in pollen release, with the pollen spraying over the bee's body.
I fricking LOVE these bombastic bees! x
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To learn how to ID Aussie bees, check out my guide - email me at kitprendergast21@gmail.com for a copy
To learn how to create a bee-friendly garden, check out my book "Creating a Haven for Native Bees"; email me at kitprendergast21@gmail.com for a copy
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