Tropical carpenter bee

Males mate in mid-air. They grasp the female in flight and place their front or middle legs, which have long fringes of hairs, over her compound eyes.1

It is among the largest carpenter bees and among the largest bees in the world, but it is not the largest. That title belongs to another Southeast Asian bee, the Indonesian Megachile pluto.1

Carpenter bees are used commercially in the Philippines to pollinate passion-fruit flowers, and the flowers have been found to bloom in step with the bees' foraging times.1

In urban areas, it can become attached to certain perches and return to them day after day, even after several generations.1

It can have more than two generations a year, though this depends on how many flowers are available in its habitat.1