Carpenters

The Australian peacock carpenter bee, Xylocopa bombylans, lives along the Cape York Peninsula in north Queensland and south along the eastern seaboard toward the Sydney region.

Carpenter bees get their common name from habitually burrowing into wood. They nest in trees, lumber, and even furniture if they can find some. Here they cleverly use wood shavings, bits, and bobs to create partitions between nesting cells and cozy corners. The peacock carpenter does this with an impressive iridescent blue-green coat on, hence the "peacock" adage.

For comparison, the bottom critter here is the eastern carpenter bee, Xylocopa virginica, an inhabitant of the eastern United States into Canada. It has a glossy, mostly black body with a slight metallic purple tint and a hint of golden fuzz.

Carpenter bees are generally stocky and fairly loud! You can tell one is coming by its low-pitched buzzing as it flies between flowers. They may approach you, fly close to your face and buzz you an earful in an attempt to intimidate you, but these critters aren't known to sting unless trapped or handled roughly. In the case of the eastern carpenter bee, the males can't sting at all.

This work is on 300gsm cotton pressed paper, currently set in an external frame and ready to hang. It can easily be reframed to your liking. Its fine detail makes for an interesting piece that invites you to come in for a closer look.

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Frieda-Marié de Jager is a South African artist and writer living in north Melbourne. She's enjoyed painting her whole life, since the first self-portrait on the wall at 18 months, and is specifically in love with painting weird and wonderful creatures.

Frieda has a formal education in fine art and holds a technical degree in jewellery design and manufacturing. She worked in South Africa's world-renowned diamond industry before her career veered into marketing, content writing, and graphic design.

Since the birth of her son, an avid young scientist, learning about nature's most intriguing critters has been an everyday adventure. She uses her son's curiosity as inspiration for choosing her subject matter and, in many ways, each new work becomes an adventure in science and art.