Xylocopa violacea

This is a large bee: individuals can reach up to 25 mm long.

It is covered in black hair, and its wings shine with a metallic blue-violet gloss, which gives the bee its name.

Males can be told from the similar Xylocopa valga by two reddish segments near the tip of the antennae; X. valga has entirely black antennae.

Its natural range stretches from the Mediterranean region to Asia.

According to a Bavarian state forestry institute, the species seems to have kept spreading in Germany since 2000.

It has bred in Britain: in 2006 bees nested in an old apple tree at Shepshed, Leicestershire.

It is usually regarded as a solitary bee that raises a single generation each year.

At the end of summer both males and females move into old nest burrows and spend the winter there as adults.

In Bavaria adults can be seen flying from April to October.

Larvae grow inside the tunnels on pollen cakes that the adult bees carry in.

Females gnaw their own nest tunnels into wood that already breaks easily, such as branches, stems, stakes and beams.

In Britain it has been seen visiting the flowers of tree mallow and buddleia.

Females guard their nests and can defend them fiercely against other violet carpenter bees.

Despite its imposing size, it is not aggressive, although it can sting.