Valley carpenter bee
The valley carpenter bee is one of the biggest bees in California and Hawaii. The females are shiny black with wings that shimmer purple and copper. The males look totally different: fuzzy golden brown with green eyes, like a flying teddy bear.
How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Valley carpenter bee compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It is about 2.5 centimetres long, as long as a big grape.
For a long time scientists thought the golden males and black females were two different kinds of bee.
It probably reached Hawaii with the help of people, because Hawaii is very far from any other land.
A scientist once misread an old label and thought it came from islands in Asia instead of Hawaii.
The males make a special smell from their bodies to attract females.
Most asked questions about Valley carpenter bee
?Why are some valley carpenter bees gold and others black?
The golden ones with green eyes are males and the black ones are females.
?How big is a valley carpenter bee?
It grows to about 2.5 centimetres long, one of the biggest bees in California.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Xylocopa sonorina
- Named by
- Smith, 1874
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- North America, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Hawaiian carpenter bee
Where the facts come from
- Xylocopa sonorina (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Brocken Inaglory. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
Western honey bee
Buff-tailed bumblebee
Violet carpenter bee
Giant honey bee
Wallace's giant bee
Himalayan giant honey bee
Batman hoverfly
Bird-cherry ermine
Leaf-curling spider
American snout
Baltimore checkerspot
Allegheny mound ant