Tunnels excavated in wood
Bees that nest this way. Nesting habit decides what a garden has to provide — bare sunny soil, dead wood, hollow stems or nothing at all — and it is the half of bee conservation that flower lists leave out.
10 records · nesting habit
- Carpenter beesXylocopaThe largest bees most people ever see, and among the loudest. Carpenter bees excavate their own tunnels in dead wood using their mandibles — a remarkable feat for an insect — and the biggest species are the size of the top joint of a thumb. The violet carpenter bee, glossy black with iridescent blue-violet wings, is one of the most spectacular insects in Europe and is spreading northwards.
- Sweat beesHalictidaeThe bees that land on your arm in hot weather, and the group that breaks the tidy division between solitary and social bees more thoroughly than anything else in the order. Some sweat bees are strictly solitary, some form small colonies with a queen and workers, and a number switch between the two depending on latitude, altitude and season — the same species living socially in a warm valley and solitarily on the hill above it. They are also small, abundant, easily overlooked, and among the most important wild pollinators in temperate and tropical agriculture alike.
- Digger beesAnthophoraFast, furry, bumblebee-like solitary bees that hover in front of a flower before darting into it, and among the earliest substantial bees of the spring. The hairy-footed flower bee is the one most British gardeners meet — the females black and the males gingery, so different that they were long thought to be separate species — and it is a specialist of deep tubular flowers that honey bees cannot use.
- Small carpenter beesCeratinaTiny, shiny, metallic dark-green or blue-black bees that excavate nests in the soft pith of broken stems — bramble, raspberry, elder, sumac — and then, unusually for a solitary bee, stay with their offspring. A Ceratina mother guards her nest through development and in some species is still alive when her young emerge, which puts the genus at one of the evolutionary staging posts between solitary living and true sociality.
- Hairy-footed flower beeAnthophora plumipesA fast, furry, hovering bee that appears in gardens in early March and is regularly reported as two different species, because the sexes look nothing alike: the females are entirely black with orange pollen brushes, the males gingery-brown with long feathery hairs on their middle legs. It is one of the earliest substantial bees of the year and a specialist of the deep spring flowers honey bees cannot reach.
- Giant resin beeMegachile sculpturalisA very large east Asian megachild that has established across North America and Europe within two decades, and one of the few solitary bees anywhere to become a genuine invasion concern. It nests in existing cavities, seals them with resin, and has been recorded forcibly evicting native carpenter bees from their tunnels — which is unusual behaviour and the main reason it is watched.
- Violet carpenter beeXylocopa violaceaOne of Europe's largest and most spectacular bees — a jet-black insect the size of a small bird with wings that flash iridescent violet in sunlight. It excavates nest tunnels in dead wood, and it has expanded northwards across Europe over recent decades, reaching southern England where it was formerly a rarity.
- Augochlora beesAugochloraBrilliant metallic green sweat bees that nest in rotting wood rather than in soil — unusual among halictids, and the reason they persist in closed woodland where ground-nesting bees cannot. Augochlora pura is a common and dazzling bee of eastern North American forest, and it is entirely solitary despite belonging to a largely social family.
- Eastern carpenter beeXylocopa virginicaNorth America's familiar large carpenter bee, and the one that hovers menacingly in front of people around porches and decking each spring. The hovering is done by males, which have no sting whatsoever. It excavates remarkably clean round tunnels in dead softwood, and unusually for a solitary bee it shows the beginnings of social behaviour — related females may share a nest with one reproducing.
- Tetragonula beesTetragonulaThe small stingless bees of Asia and Australia, and the genus behind both the Malaysian kelulut industry and Australian sugarbag honey. They are tiny — often three or four millimetres — and they build spiral brood combs and elaborate resin nest entrances that are frequently the easiest way to find them.
Other nesting habit groups
Tools that use these records
- Plant recommendation tool
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- Bee-friendly garden planner
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- Flowering calendar
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