Wood-boring carpenter bees (pictured above) can cause substantial structural damage to roof shingles, siding, decks and other wooden structures. Telltale signs include piles of coarse sawdust and yellowish-brown staining from excrement below entry holes.
Although often misunderstood and misjudged as dangerous creatures, bees and wasps should not be treated as threats. Instead, these beneficial pollinators tend to operate independently from each other and rarely form colonies or sting.
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Pollen
Bees depend on pollen as their primary source of protein for growth and egg-laying activities, so it’s crucial that they collect sufficient amounts from flowering plants in order to meet this need. This necessitates collecting enough pollen from them each day in order to meet all their requirements for egg laying and flapping activities.
Bees collecting pollen from dandelions or clover flowers must transfer its pollen grains either to another flower on the same plant or another species belonging to that same genus of flowering plants, thus helping these flowers reproduce successfully. It is this pollen transference process which necessitates help from insects or other animals for reproduction purposes.
Female carpenter bees make circular holes in wood to lay their eggs, provision them with pollen and regurgitated nectar from nectar production, then seal off chambers using regurgitated wood pulp. Carpenter bees prefer soft unpainted or worn wood such as pine, fir, cypress, oak and redwood – while they don’t consume this wood directly they create tunnels in it to allow moisture infiltration that eventually leads to structural damage over time.
Nectar
Nectar is a sugary liquid that attracts insects, birds, and mammals to assist with plant pollination. A honeybee drinking nectar collects pollen from each flower’s stamens by brushing off her fur with her front legs before sticking it onto pollen baskets attached to its abdomen – she returns this bounty back to its hive where it will eventually be turned into honey!
Flowers contain glands known as nectaries which secrete nectar to attract pollinators from animals, while some plants also feature extrafloral nectaries which produce food for pollination but do not need pollenation as much.
Nectar contains mostly sugars as its primary solute; however, it also contains water and other components such as amino acids (protein building blocks) and preservatives. Unlike the 14-18 percent water content in honey production phloem sap used by bees for honey making processes, nectar must be consumed immediately or it will ferment into harmful by-products of fermentation.
Pollination
Many bee species (such as honeybees) live in colonies that rely on foraging for nectar and pollen from flowering plants to sustain themselves throughout winter. Their intensive foraging efforts result in widespread pollination of crops – making bees one of the world’s premier crop pollinators.
Carpenter bees are prized spring pollinators. While worker bees live in colonies, carpenter bee females work alone to dig long tunnels into wood surfaces such as fence posts, deck boards and roof eaves to produce galleries which can cause irreparable damage when occurring in structural components such as fence posts.
As female carpenter bees excavate their galleries, they provision each cell with pollen from spring-flowering plants before laying an individual egg into each provisioned cell and sealing it off. Once their eggs hatch in midsummer, their young bees feed on pollen provisions until their maturity in fall – using their stingers to transfer pollen between male parts of flowers with similar species to other female parts, thus fertilizing and producing seeds for reproduction.
Nesting
Carpenter bees, commonly referred to as carpenter bees, are one of the largest native carpenter bee species that use wood as nest material. These solitary insects do not live in colonies and are easily identified by their habit of drilling round entrance holes into wood surfaces such as window frames, eaves, doors, fence boards and decks for nests – as well as expanding old tunnels over time. You can identify them from pulverized sawdust that accumulates around and beneath their holes – these bees can also enlarge old tunnels over time! You can recognize these bees from their behavior – when round entrance holes are drilled – unlike their relatives that live communally in colonies hives!
Bees begin by drilling a nearly round entrance hole about 1/2 inch deep into any desired wood surface, then turning right at right angles to the grain of the wood and digging a tunnel approximately 6-8 inches long. Each tunnel cell then receives pollen balls as larvae develop inside, until maturity occurs in mid summer. Finally, adult bees overwinter either in their original tunnel or expanded cells.
If you find any signs of carpenter bees on your property, treat the area in spring, midsummer and early fall with commercial insecticide spray to kill them directly in their entrance holes. This should ensure maximum effectiveness against future invasions.
