Family: Apidae
Subfamily: Xylocopinae
Tribe: Xylocopini
Genus: Xylocopa
Subgenus: Nyctomelitta, Cockerell 1929
Common name: Carpenter bee
Xylocopa (Nyctomelitta) are large bees, 26 – 35 mm in length, with reddish brown integumentintegument:
a tough, protective outer layer
. They have thick, orange to rust colored pubescencepubescence:
short, fine hair
that covers the legs, head, thorax, and abdomen. Their wings are amber in color with a weak purple iridescence. Members of this subgenus are crepuscular and have distinctively large eyes and ocelliocelli:
simple light reception organs; bees have three of them at the top of their head
(Hurd and Moure 1963Hurd and Moure 1963:
Hurd, P.D. and J.S. Moure. 1963. A Classification of the Large Carpenter Bees (Xylocopine) (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). University of California Publications in Entomology (Vol. 29). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 365 pp.).
Xylocopa (Nyctomelitta) contains 3 species (Hurd and Moure 1963Hurd and Moure 1963:
Hurd, P.D. and J.S. Moure. 1963. A Classification of the Large Carpenter Bees (Xylocopine) (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). University of California Publications in Entomology (Vol. 29). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 365 pp.).
Xylocopa (Nyctomelitta) is known from India and Sri Lanka east to southern China and Indonesia (Michener 2007Michener 2007:
Michener, C.D. 2007. The Bees of the World (2nd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 953 pp.).
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Xylocopa (Nyctomelitta) is crepuscular and only known to visit flowers that are open in the evening. They have been recorded visiting flowers from a number of plant families including: Acanthaceae, Anacardiaceae, Bignoniaceae, Bombacaceae, Brassicaceae, Casuarinaceae, Combretaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, Fagaceae, Lauraceae, Meliaceae, Moraceae, Myrtaceae, Prunus, Rosaceae, Rutaceae, Sapotaceae, Sonneratiaceae, and Ulmaceae (Burgett et al. 2005Burgett et al. 2005:
Burgett, M., P. Sukumalanand, G. Vorwohl. 2005. Pollen Species Resources for Xylocopa ( Nyctomelitta ) tranquebarica (F.) A Night-Flying Carpenter Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of Southeast Asia. ScienceAsia 31: 65-68.).
(modified from Hurd and Moure 1963Hurd and Moure 1963:
Hurd, P.D. and J.S. Moure. 1963. A Classification of the Large Carpenter Bees (Xylocopine) (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). University of California Publications in Entomology (Vol. 29). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 365 pp.)
The combination of their large size, reddish-brown integumentintegument:
a tough, protective outer layer
, and greatly enlarged ocelliocelli:
simple light reception organs; bees have three of them at the top of their head
make this subgenus unlikely to be confused with other Xylocopa subgenera (Hurd and Moure 1963Hurd and Moure 1963:
Hurd, P.D. and J.S. Moure. 1963. A Classification of the Large Carpenter Bees (Xylocopine) (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). University of California Publications in Entomology (Vol. 29). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 365 pp.).
Little is known about the nesting habits of Xylocopa (Nyctomelitta) but they have been recorded nesting in a dead logs and stumps, wooden posts, the branches of a mango tree (Hurd and Moure 1963Hurd and Moure 1963:
Hurd, P.D. and J.S. Moure. 1963. A Classification of the Large Carpenter Bees (Xylocopine) (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). University of California Publications in Entomology (Vol. 29). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 365 pp.).
There are no known invasives.
Burgett, M., P. Sukumalanand, G. Vorwohl. 2005. Pollen Species Resources for Xylocopa (Nyctomelitta) tranquebarica (F.) A Night-Flying Carpenter Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) of Southeast Asia. ScienceAsia 31: 65-68.
Hurd, P.D. and J.S. Moure. 1963. A Classification of the Large Carpenter Bees (Xylocopine) (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). University of California Publications in Entomology (Vol. 29). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 365 pp.
Michener, C.D. 2007. The Bees of the World (2nd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 953 pp.
Warrant, E.J. 2008. Seeing in the dark: vision and visual behaviour in nocturnal bees and wasps. The Journal of Experimental Biology 211: 1737-1746.