![]() ![]() In the wild carpenter bees make their homes in the branches of dead standing trees. ![]() I saw my first tiger bee fly around the wooden railing of my back deck poking around carpenter bee holes only after I naturescaped my yard. For example, insects such as the tiger bee fly lay eggs in the same nesting cavity as the carpenter bee eggs so their larvae can parasitize the carpenter larvae. The most habitat friendly solution to deter carpenter bees without harming them is to offer them an alternative nesting spot so you won’t miss out on having them pollinate your plants! In a wildlife friendly yard where no pesticides or yard chemicals are used, native plants create natural biodiversity, and healthy yard practices such as brush piles exist, carpenter bees become another member of the ecosystem where everything is kept in balance. Years ago we had an arbor that we thought the carpenter bees ruined but we realized when we took it down that the reason the structure was falling apart was that the wood was rotting, and the carpenter bees were merely taking advantage of the soft, rotting wood like they would if it was a rotting tree stump. ![]() Often carpenter bees are blamed for natural time-related wood decay because their holes are visible from year to year. The developing larvae mature over the next few weeks and feed on the bee bread until later in the summer when a new generation of bees emerge and pollinate flowers before returning to the wood in the fall for hibernation.Ĭarpenter bees return to the same nesting site each year and tend to use holes that have already been constructed instead of new ones.Ĭarpenter bees construct their nesting galleries in the direction of the wood grain and do surprisingly little structural damage. The females then excavate a burrow if there isn’t a previous tunnel, leave a dough-like mix of pollen and nectar they make called bee bread in each cell they lay their eggs in, then seal it with regurgitated wood pulp. Basically, adult carpenter bees overwinter in wood tunnels, emerge and mate in the spring. ![]()
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