Great Carpenter Bee
O happy days! Female great carpenter bees are back in the garden - at least one of them is! This one has been patrolling around the garden the last few days - attracted by our native wisteria (Callerya megaspermum), but so far the flowers that have opened on the vine are too high to get a shot of her on it. Hopefully she'll have company before long as more bees emerge from the nest. These bees are 24-25mm.
This beauty has been visiting a few other plants in the garden: bedding begonias, Hibbertia scandens, Polygala fruticosa and some salvias, including this one - Mystic Spires.
In this part of Queensland we get two Great Carpenter Bee species - Xylocopa (Koptortosoma) aruana and X (K) lieftincki. Apparently the one in our garden is lieftincki, identified by Dr Ken Walker from Museum Victoria on Bowerbird. Ken says "The only way to distinguish X. aruana from X. lieftincki is by the amount of yellow hair that extends down the side of the thorax. If it does not extend very far (not much past the dorsal surface of the thorax) then it is X. aruana where as if it extends a long way down the vertical surface of the thorax then it is X. lieftincki." Here's a link to a site showing the difference, barely discernible:
www.padil.gov.au/pollinators/compare/images?pests=138571+...
Great Carpenter Bee
O happy days! Female great carpenter bees are back in the garden - at least one of them is! This one has been patrolling around the garden the last few days - attracted by our native wisteria (Callerya megaspermum), but so far the flowers that have opened on the vine are too high to get a shot of her on it. Hopefully she'll have company before long as more bees emerge from the nest. These bees are 24-25mm.
This beauty has been visiting a few other plants in the garden: bedding begonias, Hibbertia scandens, Polygala fruticosa and some salvias, including this one - Mystic Spires.
In this part of Queensland we get two Great Carpenter Bee species - Xylocopa (Koptortosoma) aruana and X (K) lieftincki. Apparently the one in our garden is lieftincki, identified by Dr Ken Walker from Museum Victoria on Bowerbird. Ken says "The only way to distinguish X. aruana from X. lieftincki is by the amount of yellow hair that extends down the side of the thorax. If it does not extend very far (not much past the dorsal surface of the thorax) then it is X. aruana where as if it extends a long way down the vertical surface of the thorax then it is X. lieftincki." Here's a link to a site showing the difference, barely discernible:
www.padil.gov.au/pollinators/compare/images?pests=138571+...