The common eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, is the carpenter bee most often encountered in the eastern United States. It is often mistaken for a large bumblebee species, as they are similar in size and coloring. They can be important pollinators, especially of open-faced flowers, though they are also known to "rob" nectar by boring holes in the sides of flowers with deep corollas (thus not accomplishing pollination). They sometimes bore holes in wood dwellings and can become minor pests. They use chewed wood bits to form partitions between the cells in the nest.
Read more about Eastern Carpenter Bee: Appearance, Nesting, Deterrence, Behavior, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words eastern, carpenter and/or bee:
“Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking middle-aged men.... I talked with one of them, telling him that I had come all this distance partly to see where the white pine, the Eastern stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I had found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered that he could hardly tell me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He came home.”
—John Carpenter (b. 1948)
“Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)