[5] Frederick Smith, Assistant in the Zoological Department of the British Museum and member of the council of the Entomological Society of London, first described X. sonorina in 1874 from specimens collected in Hawaii.

Smith's original description was: Female.—Black; head and thorax closely and moderately punctured; the mesothorax smooth, impunctate and shining on the disk; metathorax rounded behind; abdomen shining rather finely punctured, most closely so at the sides above; the pubescence entirely black, except that on the anterior tarsi beneath, which is ferruginous; the claws of the tarsi ferruginous; wings fusco-hyaline, with a darker cloud beyond the enclosed cells, and adorned with a bright purple and coppery iridescence.

The primary habitats of mainland X. sonorina are valleys and foothills with deciduous trees dominated by oaks.

Located in the Pacific Ocean, more than 2,000 mi (3,219 km) away from the closest landfall in North America, Hawaii's great distance from the Americas is thought to have been too large for natural biological dispersal to succeed, and it has been suggested that it is likely humans aided X. sonorina in its arrival to Hawaii.

[4] Following the colonization of Hawaii, X. sonorina was introduced into the Marianas Islands, China, and Japan, but these introductions were not successful.

[4] In the spring, females mate with males and then may disperse and start new nests, or clean out and enlarge the old tunnels used during the winter, adding brood cells.

Each cell a female provisions contains a substance called "bee bread", which is a mixture of pollen and nectar used as food for the larvae.

The tunnels average 6 to 10 in (15 to 25 cm) in length and consist of a linear series of partitioned brood cells.

[15][20][12][21][13] Because Xylocopa species are not aggressive, defense is primarily carried out by building well constructed cell partitions, blocking the nest entrance in various ways, covering the cell partitions with liquid substances, or sacrificing all the brood of a nest that has been compromised by a parasite.

[19] Entomologist Julian R. Yates III of the University of Hawaii at Manoa describes the life cycle of X. sonorina in Hawaii: Having located a suitable piece of wood, the female bee begins to excavate a single tunnel in preparation for egg laying.

Because of our tropical climate, egg laying by female carpenter bees occurs year-round although it may decline during the winter months, when the weather is worse.

Before laying eggs, the female collects pollen and deposits it, in the form of a ball, in the tunnel at a point furthest from the entrance.

[17]Flowers are the sole source of food and water for these bees, which have a pattern of visiting certain plants at various times throughout the day, and provide pollen for the females to feed their brood.

[19] In Hawaii and Niue Island, X. sonorina has been used in tropical agriculture as a pollinator of Passiflora edulis, a species of passion fruit.

[25] For species such as X. sonorina, there are patches of different quality arising from "the continuous but variable input of mate-searching females over afternoons and flight seasons".

[19] The large mesosomal gland of male X. sonorina produces volatile components, called pheromones, which are attractive to females.

[27] It is also conceivable that in X. sonorina, the quality of the male's sex pheromone may be a key feature determining his sexual attractiveness.

[28] By modifying their foraging patterns and flying between different altitudes depending upon temperature, the valley carpenter bee is able to adapt to very different environments.

Like bumblebees, they have an aortic loop through the flight muscles that acts as a cooling coil allowing heat transfer to the blood, head, and abdomen.

[28] Carpenter bees have large heads, which present a larger surface area for convective cooling.

Physiological heat transfer to head or abdomen would not be apparent from body temperatures due to the rapid convective cooling, especially at high air temperatures when flight speed increases; thermoregulation involves a strong reliance on forced convection as a result of changes in flight speed, with active heat transfer to the abdomen and evaporative heat loss from the head at high temperatures.