Eastern Carpenter Bee
Xylocopa virginica · Bees & wasps
Carpenter bee in flight
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 12 July 2025
A carpenter bee caught airborne on the approach to a mallow flower in the July border, still dusted in pollen from whatever it visited last. It is the big black bee of eastern gardens, nesting in bare wood and working the summer borders from dawn.
The shiny black abdomen distinguishes it from a bumblebee even mid-flight, if the wingbeat wasn't already the giveaway. Carpenter bees are the ones that hover in front of your face on a porch in spring: those are males, guarding a nest, and they have no sting at all.
Eastern Carpenter Bee
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 12 July 2025
An Eastern Carpenter Bee on a flower in the July border, the big black bee of the eastern United States that nests in bare wood - the porch rail, the fence post, the dead branch - and forages on almost anything.
Often mistaken for a bumblebee, but the shiny, hairless black abdomen is the tell; bumblebees are furred all over. Named for the female's habit of excavating nest tunnels in untreated wood. The tunnels rarely cause structural damage, but the same one gets reused and extended year after year if it isn't repaired, and a porch rail can end up honeycombed.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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