Orange-tipped Wood-digger bee

Anthophora terminalis

Size: 12-13 mm (1/2 in.) (medium-sized)

Anthophora terminalis are entertaining to watch – they are unusually noisy, and they have a distinctive way of flying. They zip speedily around flowers and then stop abruptly, hovering in front of a blossom, sometimes angling their long tongues down the flower’s throat without letting their feet touch the petals. Or they buzz loudly while clinging to the flowers, and thrust their faces down so deeply into the blossoms that when the bees emerge, their heads and thoraxes are coated in pollen.

Female Anthophora terminalis carry pollen on their hind legs and practice buzz pollination -- that is, they vibrate their wing muscles, shaking pollen from the anthers of flowers. These honey-bee sized insects are exceptionally effective pollinators.

The Greek word Anthophora means “flower-bearer," or "flower-producer," but bees of this genus are commonly referred to by the more pedestrian name “digger bees”. Most digger bees construct nests in the ground by digging with their front legs and using their mandibles to loosen dirt. Anthophora terminalis is unusual among digger bees, however, because this species constructs its nests in pithy stems and rotted wood. The bees line their nests with oils collected from plants.

Orange-tipped wood-digger bees are generalist pollinators that appear in southern New York during late spring and throughout the summer. Anthophora terminalis play an important role in maintaining wildflower diversity, because of their ability to pollinate deep-throated and tubular blossoms inaccessible to many large bees, among them endangered wild orchids. Locally, this species is often found on Penstemon, Virginia bluebells, giant blue lobelia, sage and vetch. Both males and females seem to show a preference for purple flowers.

Identification information:

Anthophora terminalis are a striking digger bee species, robustly built, with black heads and bushy-looking heads and thoraxes thoraxes covered by dark, pale, and orangish hairs. The bees' abdomens are black and traversed by narrow white bands. On females, the fifth segment of the abdomen (T5) is fringed with orange hairs -- hence the common name "orange-tipped digger bee". The legs of both males and females are mostly dark with reddish lower tarsi. The scopa (pollen-carrying) hairs on females' back legs are luxuriant and pale yellow.

Both males and females have dark antennae, green eyes and three-toothed mandibles. Both also possess exceptionally long tongues, which allow them to gather nectar or pollen from tubular flowers. The male Anthophora terminalis has a yellow clypeus (the face-part above the mandibles), and a mostly-yellow labrum (the face-part between the mandibles).

ID tips: Most digger bees in the United States and Canada live in western states and provinces. Only6 Anthophora species are common in the eastern United States: Anthophora abrupta, A. bomboides, A. terminalis and A. ursina; and the less commonly, A. villosula and A. walshii. The orange tipped wood-digger bee (A. terminalis) can be distinguished from all of these by the bright orange hairs on the tip of the female’s abdomen; and, in males, by the entirely yellow clypeus and the mixture of dark and light hairs on the thorax.

There are nearly sixty Anthophora species found within the continental United and Canada. Outside of the eastern United States, the unique patterns formed by the male's yellow facial markings are the best way to identify males of this species in areas outside the northeast.

TAXONOMY - Anthophora terminalis Digger Bees

Order: Hymenoptera

Family: Apidae

Subfamily: Anthophorinae

Tribe: Anthophorini (Digger Bees)

Genus: Anthophora

Subgenus: Clisodon

Species: Anthophora terminalis

Anthophora terminalis; orange-tipped wood-digger bee; Copyright 2026 Paula Sharp

A male Anthophora terminalis

A female Anthohora terminalis

A male Anthophora terminalis visiting wild bee balm

A male Anthophora terminalis -- note the long legs of the digger bee

The male bee drinking nectar from a tubular bee balm blossom while steadying itself with its long hind legs

A female Anthophora terminalis sipping pollen from lobelia: the female is carrying bright orange lobelia pollen on its hind legs. Like the male, the female Anthophora terminalis has a head and thorax covered with a mix of dark and light hairs.

The female Anthophora terminalis uses its long tongue to reach into the deep throat of the lobelia flower -- while remaining hovering in mid-air in front of the blossom

Anthophora terminalis digger bees' long tongues allow them to gather nectar and pollen from deep-throated flowers like the lobelia shown here.

Abrupt Digger Bee
Anthophora abrupta

1/2" - 3/5" (medium-sized to medium-large)

Abrupt digger bees are a rare sight at Rockefeller State Park. To date, they have been observed only in mid-June, when they emerge to feed on wild penstamon that grows along the edges of a stream near the Pocantico River Trail. The picture of the male Anthophora abrupta shown here is the only photograph in this guide that captures a moment in the life of a Rockefeller Park Anthophora abrupta. Appropriately, the picture was taken as the abrupt digger bee zipped by. These are boisterous, active and fast bees.

In 1929, the entomologist Phil Rau wrote of Anthophora abrupta: “They are neither timid nor aggressive, but they certainly are self-reliant…how conspicuous they are as they noisily swing their ponderous bodies to and fro on the wing, arrive home and scramble into their burrows or come tumbling out headlong and dash off into the sunny fields, with all the exuberance of boys just out of school. They have none of the shy, stealthy ways of maneuvering, whereby some of the smaller and daintier varieties of bees and wasps hold their own in a competitive world.”

Like most other digger bees, Anthophora abrupta nest in the earth; they prefer vertical banks rather than level ground. Female Anthophora abrupta haul mud through the air with their front legs, used to moisten dirt and clay when digging nest tunnels in the ground. When Anthophora abrupta are expanding their underground lairs, they pile excavated dirt outside their holes in tall thin stacks called tumuli that look like makeshift chimneys.

Anthophora abrupta are solitary – that is, each bee builds and provisions its own nest --- but these bees are also gregarious. They prefer building their nests close by one another. “The result,” Rau wrote, is a very conspicuous village, sometimes a very crowded and busy town of these masonry turrets … At a busy season when many of these huge bees are bustling about with very audible hum and zip, the entire village with its many wonderful towers and industrious citizens form a spectacle which is in itself quite capable of overawing any but the most unemotional individual.”

During the evening, male Anthophora abrupta climb plant stems and grass blades, grip them near the top with their mandibles, and fall asleep dangling from their mandibles. Groups of males often can be found sleeping together on plants near nesting areas.

Anthophora abrupta have been documented pollinating a fairly wide range of plants. In New York, they are partial to roses, inkberry, azaleas, staghorn sumac, purple milkweed, delphinium and jewelweed. In agricultural areas, these bees pollinate asparagus, tomatoes, caneberries and cranberries.

Identification information: Anthophora abrupta are round-bodied, robust bees covered with golden and black hairs. Because of these traits, they are they are sometimes mistaken for bumble bees. Bumble bees, however, never appear with the combination black head / pale thorax / black abdomen. This is the pattern characterizing Anthophora abrupta: the heads and abdomens of Anthophora abrupta bees are dark brown or black and partly-covered with black hairs; and their thoraxes are covered with pale-gold hairs. Their legs sport shaggy black hair.

Anthophora abrupta lack narrow white bands on their abdomens – a trait that helps distinguish them fairly easily from the Abrupta terminalis shown above in this guide. Anthophora abrupta are also quite hefty for New York digger bees – both males females run as large as 15 mm ( 3/5 in.) in length. Males can be slightly smaller than females.

Male digger bees found in the eastern United States tend to have yellow masks – that is, the clypei and labrums (face parts above and between the mandibles) are predominantly yellow. Masks vary from species to species. Anthophora abrupta additionally have yellow markings on theirmandibles and scapes (lowest antennae segments), a trait that distinguishes them from Anthophora terminalis. Although not apparent in the photograph here, Anthophora abrupta males also have a distinctive mustache of hair just above the mandibles. Female abrupt digger bees have black faces; they also have “roman noses,” or concave profiles.

TAXONOMY - Anthophora abrupta Digger Bees

Order: Hymenoptera

Family: Apidae

Subfamily: Apinae

Tribe: Anthophorini (Digger Bees)

Genus: Anthophora

Subgenus: Melea