Carpenter Bee

Description:

This commom sight in the Western Cape is the female as the males are completly covered in yellow hairs.(I am yet to find one). Their name, Xylocopa is from the Greek which means wood cutter. They bore into wood by vibrating their bodies while rasping with there saw like mandibles, the first buzz saw perhaps? They are stocky with two difined yellow stripes on their back. The bore nests into Aloe and Agave stems as well as tree branches and construct a series of cells seperated by partitions of wood scrapings glued with saliva. Strangly, females have a colony of mites from the Dinogamasus species, living in a special hollow in their abdomen. The relationship is not fully understood but one theroy is they feed on fungai and other harmful mites in the nest ridding it of these parasites.

Habitat:

Wide range from Fynbos to dry Karoo desert.