Apart from conservation areas around Sydney, and in the Great Dividing Range, it exists only on the western half of Kangaroo Island in SA.

[4] The golden-green carpenter bee nests by hollowing out stalks of grasstrees (Xanthorrhoea), or soft wood such as Banksia, Casuarina, Melaleuca and Leptospermum.

The tunnels are partitioned into several cells, where the mother bee lays an egg in each accompanied by provisions of nectar and pollen.

The last green carpenter bee seen in Victoria was in December 1938 in the Grampians, not long before the Black Friday fires of January 1939.

[2] In 2007 a huge fire destroyed much of the vegetation in Flinders Chase National Park on Kangaroo Island, but left dry grass-tree stalks in the adjacent areas which were colonised by the bees.

Almost 300 female carpenter bees used the artificial stalks to raise their young, until disaster struck in the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season.