I have always been taught that male carpenter bees do not have a stinger. Yesterday, however, I noticed a male carpenter bee excavating the underside of my deck railing. I confidently grasped the bee by the abdomen and removed it from the hole it had begun to form. When I did so, I noticed a tiny, needle-like appendage extend from the terminus of the bee’s abdomen. The appendage retracted just before I released the bee. The appendage did not contact my fingers and I was unharmed by the event. I was, however, quite shocked!
Subsequent Googling confirmed my knowledge that male carpenter bees do not, in fact, have stingers. I am 100% confident this was a male carpenter bee. So…What did I see?
Mind blown again! I was unaware that the females were the excavators. Apparently my confidence was misplaced. The abdomen sure looked to be of the bulbous, male variety, but apparently I was mistaken.
Male carpenter bees don’t do much more than defend a territory and mate with any females that happen by. Depending on the species, they may hang out around the opening of the female nests holes and defend them against nest robbers and parasites. The actual excavation and provisioning of the nest cells is done by the females.
the stinger of bees and wasps is a modified ovipositor (egg-laying organ,) workers can’t produce eggs. and I think (but might be wrong) the queen (who lays eggs) has no sting. Males, obviously, wouldn’t have either.
Queen bees and wasps can sting. Queen honeybees have stingers that are smooth and unbarbed, which means they can sting repeatedly without damaging themselves. Worker honeybees have barbed stingers that stay in the wound after stinging, causing fatal internal injuries to the worker. Workers of other kinds of bees and wasps can sting repeatedly without dying.
And male bees and wasps will mimic stinging behavior when disturbed. If you’re sure it was a male you picked up, that may have been what it was doing, with the illusion of something coming out of the abdomen caused by the movement.