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Monday, March 18, 2013

The Really Big Bee

Here is the Spruce Goose of the bee world: a Carpenter Bee.
Xylocopa californica arizonensis or Xylocopa veripuncta
I love to watch these beautiful behemoths chug along from flower to flower.
An inch long, and almost as wide, this one had the whole pea patch to herself.

 
Each time she visited a flower, the branch bent under her weight, turning the flower and herself upside down.


 
My Arizona Ecology books state that there are 1300 species of native bees in the state. Many of them are too small and too fast for me to identify, so I enjoy being able to follow the leisurely activities of the Carpenter Bee.

Katrina
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1 comment:

  1. Urban RusticMarch 19, 2013 at 5:02 AM

    I love bees.
    Still too cold here for them to appear much yet.March 2nd was lovely and mild so there were several in the garden but with the recent Arctic blasts from Russia and more snow they have all cleared off again poor things!

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