Large carpenter bees are charismatic and visit flowers everywhere in the tropics and subtropics. Unlike honeybees and bumblebees, carpenter bees receive little attention. This review integrates what is known about nesting, foraging and crop pollination behavior and is motivated by their versatility as flower visitors and pollinators (Keaser 2010). This is demonstrated by their very general foraging and dexterity in treating flowers of various species as legitimate pollinators and illicit nectar predators. They reportedly use trap hoods to forage between isolated patches and are long-range fliers of several kilometers, suggesting well-developed spatial learning, path memory, and navigation skills. They have a wide range of thermotolerance and thermoregulatory abilities, which may be used for twilight and nocturnal expansion (Somanathan et al. 2019). Carpenter bees pollinate Passiflora (Passiflora spp.) in natural habitats and commercial farming settings. They provide better pollination services for this crop than bees (Barrera et al. 2021). Xylocopa subgenus Lestis has been successfully grown in greenhouses for tomato pollination. Their foraging increased the weight of tomatoes by 10% compared to a combination of wind and insect pollination. The efficiency of carpenter bees in tomato pollination is enhanced by their ability to buzz anthers. In a pilot study in Israel, honeydew melons grown in greenhouses had three times higher fruit set. It can be proposed to be an excellent, poorly studied, group for studying complex properties.