Editing Carpenter bee (section)

=== Ecological significance ===
In several species, the females live alongside their own daughters or sisters, creating a small social group. They use wood bits to form partitions between the cells in the nest. A few species bore holes in wood dwellings, chewing out burrows with their robust mandibles. Since the tunnels are near the surface, structural damage is generally minor or superficial.<ref>{{cite web|last=Jones|first=Susan|title=Fact Sheet Carpenter Bees|url=http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2074.html|publisher=Ohio State University Extension|access-date=23 July 2012}}</ref> However, carpenter bee nests are attractive to [[woodpecker]]s, which may do further damage by drilling into the wood to feed on the bees or larvae.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Why is a woodpecker knocking on the cedar shingles of my house and how do I make it stop?|url=https://extension.unh.edu/blog/why-woodpecker-knocking-cedar-shingles-my-house-and-how-do-i-make-it-stop|last=Erler|first=Emma|date=January 2, 2018|website=NH Extension}}</ref>
[[File:Xylocopa Caerulea.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Xylocopa caerulea]]'', the blue carpenter bee, engaged in [[nectar robbing]]]]
Carpenter bees have short mouthparts and are important [[pollinator]]s on some open-faced or shallow flowers; for some they even are obligate pollinators, for example the maypop (''[[Passiflora incarnata]]'') and ''[[Orphium]]'', which are not pollinated by any other insects. They also are important pollinators of flowers with various forms of lids, such as ''[[Salvia]]'' species and some members of the [[Fabaceae]]. However many carpenter bees "[[nectar robbing|rob]]" [[nectar]] by slitting the sides of flowers with deep [[Corolla (flower)|corollae]].  ''[[Eastern carpenter bee|Xylocopa virginica]]'' is one example of a species with such [[nectar robbing]] behavior.  With their short labia the bees cannot reach the nectar without piercing the long-tubed flowers; they miss contact with the anthers and perform no pollination. In some plants, this reduces fruit and seed production, while others have developed defense mechanisms against nectar robbing. When foraging for pollen from some species with tubular flowers however, the same species of carpenter bees still achieve pollination, if the anthers and stigmata are exposed together.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Keasar |first1=Tamar |title=Large carpenter bees as agricultural pollinators |journal=Psyche: A Journal of Entomology |date=2010 |volume=2010 |pages=1–7 |doi=10.1155/2010/927463|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Many [[Old World]] carpenter bees have a special pouch-like structure on the inside of their first [[metasoma]]l [[tergite]] called the [[acarinarium]] where certain [[mite]]s (''[[Dinogamasus]]'' species) reside as [[commensalism|commensals]] or symbionts. The exact nature of the relationship is not fully understood, though in other bees that carry mites, they are beneficial, feeding either on [[fungi]] in the nest, or on other harmful mites.