21/12/2025
It’s been a pretty intense couple of days, giving two Xylocopa aerata girls their best possible chance after being prematurely ejected from their nest due to an ant overrun. What an absolute privilege it is to be able to interact so closely with these bees in my own garden, a space I planted and built myself.
One of the biggest takeaways for me was just how vulnerable these bees are until they learn to fly.
Literally everything wants to eat them.
Having absolutely no idea how to properly care for carpenter bees, I had to rely purely on instinct.
Day 1: After rescuing them, I placed both bees into a container overnight to keep them safe.
Day 2: I decided to return them to the garden to see how they would respond. My garden is a little lean on flowers at the moment, being about four weeks past its peak, but luckily one of my Grevillea sericea still had a few blooms.
It was incredible to watch their instincts kick in. One of the girls immediately began sourcing nectar, while still sitting on my finger. Unfortunately, the other was still battling damage to her mouthparts from the ant attack and showed far less interest.
Within five minutes of nectar and sunlight, the first girl completely changed. She became active, running around and buzzing her wings.
Even though both were left out in the garden all day, neither was able to fly, so that evening I collected them again and returned them to the container for safety overnight.
Day 3: The morning followed a similar pattern, back out of the container and onto the Grevillea. The girl with the damaged mouthparts remained very quiet. I tried offering both honey and water, but she wasn’t interested. The other girl, however, went straight back to the flowers and quickly became energetic again. This time her whole body was vibrating and her wings were working much more aggressively. Then she started to fly - only short, clumsy distances at first. I rescued her several times from some precarious situations. Gradually her flights became longer, stronger, and higher. She began looping through the garden until, eventually, she disappeared beyond the fence.
