They are less toxic than most insecticides and they do a good job of repelling carpenter bees. Pyrethrins are natural insecticides derived from chrysanthemums. If you prefer to take a natural approach, try using boric acid around the carpenter bee entry holes.
Seal the holes with a small wad of aluminum foil and then caulk about 36 to 48 hours after insecticide treatment. Use insecticides containing carbaryl (Sevin), cyfluthrin, or resmethrin to treat the area around existing holes. Carpenter bees don’t get a lethal dose of insecticide from tunneling into insecticide-treated wood, but the insecticide does act as a deterrent. The residual effects from treating wood with insecticides only lasts about two weeks, so keeping wood surfaces treated is an endless and nearly impossible task. Carpenter bees avoid freshly painted wood surfaces, but over time, the protection wears off. Carpenter Bee Controlīegin your program of carpenter bee control by painting all unfinished wood surfaces with oil or latex paint. In addition to the bee damage, woodpeckers may peck at the wood in an effort to get to the larva inside, and rotting fungi may attack holes on the surface of the wood. The bees often return to use the same hole year after year, hollowing out more galleries and tunnels. One season’s work by a single carpenter bee doesn’t cause serious damage, but if several bees use the same entrance hole and build additional galleries off the main tunnel, the damage can be extensive. A little pile of coarse sawdust beneath the hole is a sign that carpenter bees are at work. Carpenter Bee Damageįemale carpenter bees chew one half inch (1 cm.) wide holes in wood surfaces and then create tunnels, chambers, and cells for larvae within the wood. The larvae mature six to seven weeks after the eggs hatch. Females are most likely to sting if interrupted while they are provisioning their nests. A few days after laying six or seven eggs in this manner, she dies. She lays a single egg near the pollen ball and seals off the cell with a partition made of chewed wood. The yellow hair covers most of a bumblebee’s body, while carpenter bees only have hair on their head and thorax, leaving the lower half of their body solid black.įemale carpenter bees excavate a small cell off the gallery she has created, and then forms a ball of pollen inside the cell. Both types of bees have black bodies with a covering of yellow hair. What are Carpenter Bees?Īlthough carpenter bees look a lot like bumblebees, you can easily see the difference.
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Read on to find out how to get rid of carpenter bees. Although they pose little threat to people because they rarely sting, they can cause serious structural damage to exposed wood. You might see them hovering around the eaves of a house or wooden deck rails. If you are concerned about carpenter bees taking up residence around your home, you can protect wood surfaces by keeping it coated with polyurethane or an oil-based paint.Carpenter bees look a lot like bumblebees, but their behavior is very different. She will then drill a 1-inch hole into the wood before making a right angle and excavating a gallery that is on average between 4 to 6 inches long.
When excavating a new nest, the foundress female carpenter bee will drill an entrance hole that is nearly perfectly round and is approximately ½ inch in diameter. These bees prefer to nest in weathered wood, such as siding of a building, fence posts, decks, and eaves. As a downside other bees will access the nectar through these openings and the flower will not get pollinated.Ĭarpenter bees are solitary insects, meaning that there is only one active bee per nest that is responsible for the variety of tasks needed to maintain the nest. Instead they cut an opening at the base of the flower to access the nectar, effectively becoming “nectar robbers”. Due to their large size, carpenter bees often cannot reach a flower’s nectar source. This behavior is often referred to as “buzz pollination”.
Like bumblebees, they use sonication to vibrate and loosen the pollen from a flower’s anthers. However, you will most likely notice the larger carpenter bees.Ĭarpenter bees are generalists, meaning that they feed on, and therefore pollinate, a variety of plants and crops. You may even come across some species of carpenter bees that are smaller and have a shiny, metallic blue-black or green and purple coloration. On the other hand, their thorax is very hairy and can have yellow, orange, or white coloration depending on the species. One distinguishing characteristic is that carpenter bees have a shiny black abdomen that has few hairs. Xylocopa micans (Photo credit: USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab)Ĭarpenter bees are large pollinators (approximately ¾ to 1 inch in length) that are often mistaken for bumblebees and vice versa.
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