According to scientists, the first insects that belong to the order of the Hymenoptera lived in the Jurassic period. In other words, they have been living on our planet for at least 150 million years. If we talk about bees, they appeared no more than 80 million years ago. They evolved in parallel with the development of flowering plants, and now there are at least 20 thousand species of bees. All of them are divided into 9 families. One of them - anthophorides, which include bees and carpenters. Today these insects are listed in the Red Book.
The bee carpenter violet (xylocope) is, you might say, a heavyweight, because it is larger than the usual honey bee twice. And its buzz is comparable to the flight of a flock of beetles. She does not pay much attention to people and, even if she encounters a person, will not release a sting, but calmly go on. The bee carpenter (photo of the insect can be seen above) has large black eyes and beautiful wings, a shining blue-violet shine.
In spring, these insects can often be found on white acacia, fruit trees and flowering willow. In summer, they prefer flowers and red clover. Carpenter bees collect pollen and carry it on the hairs of their paws to the nests. Flight for the flight, they are at the bottom of the cell fold their burden and slightly moisten it with nectar. Then lay the egg there and build the next bulkhead above this structure, so the bottom for the next cell turns out. Thus, the female bee fills the nest, then closes the entrance and leaves it forever. And the next year young bees-carpenters will fly out of it, sparkling with their blue-violet wings.
So why are they called carpenters? And everything is quite simple: these bees use only wooden objects for their nests. The bee gnaws in the wood long strokes, which are then used as nests. They like to dwell on the fringes and glades of old forests, like to nest on wood storages and telegraph poles. Most often they can be found during the active summer from May to June. Carpenter bees are not true honey-nuts, they are more likely to be single individuals, since they do not form large families with uterus.
Violet bees carpenters with their marital behavior are somewhat similar to some birds. Males choose the most elevated places and tirelessly patrolling, guarding their territory from other males. At this time, the females also climb higher. They meet with males on the heights of hills, bushes or trees. For their nests xylocops prefer trees that have loose wood, especially they like elderberry and sumac. In addition, they can use human habitation for their nests. These can be beams, pillars, roofing, fences (especially old and rotten ones). There have been many attempts to tame this bee to breed it as a regular honeybee, but they all failed.
The habitat of carpenter bees covers Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Central and Western Europe, the Middle East and Mongolia. In our country they live in the North Caucasus, in the south of the Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories, in the Tula, Leningrad, Pskov, Arkhangelsk and Moscow regions. They are also found in Tyva, the Southern Urals and the Lower Volga region.