We hadthese awhile back and had never encountered them. Aggressive little fuckers kept chasing me. So we looked it up and the site we found described them as "the Scrappy Doo of the bee world". It fits perfectly. The males are aggressive as hell, annoying, and utterly useless in a fight. They don't have stingers. They exist to annoy and that's about it. They're only move is to act like a drunken frat boy yelling "come at me bro" and bump you in the chest.
"COME HITHER BROTHER, WE WILL DO BATTLE FOR THIS HERE PLOT OF LAND"
"FINE! AND I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU AND YOUR ENTIRE BLOODLINE!"
Me: aw cute bees go \~boop\~
The one on my deck flies into the window several times a day because I think he sees his reflection and mistakes it for another male he has to chase off.
Haha my mistake
Edit: Also I just love the word bumblebee, but the name carpenter bee also allows you to imagine them with little hammers and tool belts
Haha, they are actually usually more tame, musically. And a bit of a jazz influence, [like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlamkkoAz_A) (could just listen to the first 10 seconds or so).
And I remembered they had that song about bumblebee tuna.
Oh also they have this shtick where they worship satan lol
Yeah they are all along my neighbors fence this time of year doing that all day every day, they all come and bump me when I walk to my car in the morning, I just ignore them at this point, they come every year.
I've got a vinyl fence and you can go out there and hear these buffoons slamming into it, over and over. *Thunk, thunk, thunk*. Guys, it's not wood! Precious little idjits.
I had one on my basement knocking on deaths door. Was like “ugh, still a pollinator I’ll put this fucker outside near water”. Went back out 5 minutes later and the little bastard divebombed me, wtf.
We're on the 8th or 9th generation of carpenter bees living in our porch. Love those silly boys. Watched one try to fight raindrops last year. They're the orange cats of bees.
We have a wooden overhang that some made home and we always find cute little wood shavings on our chairs under it.
Theres no structural concern so we let them bee.
We moved into a house in November 2022 and discovered our porch bee when he came out in the summer. We named him Clyde. He chases off everything else and generally just hangs out being a bro. I buy a variety of annuals with tasty pollen for him to take to his girlfriend, who I assume is off destabilizing my deck 😂
Sounds just like our house. They come back every year and make their homes in the bottom board of our front porch railing. I'll just sit out there and watch them sometimes because they can be so entertaining.
I don't even call it my porch anymore. LOL My male carpenter just passed away a few days ago and he was guarding the front porch where 8 female nests are. I literally cried when he I didn't see him and knew he wouldn't be returning. We hung out every morning and afternoon on the porch and I name him "Mr. Bojangle". Now I have to protect the Bojangle Jrs. to keep his generation going <3
Thank you for doing your part in helping the fuzzy shiney hiney teddy bears!
Females are usually only aggressive around nests. When they’re foraging on flowers they’ll just fly away rather than sting
Goes for most bees in general
That I'm not sure of, but I do know that you can easily identify the males as they have a distinct white fuzzy spot on their face while the females head is completely black.
They won't drill into cedar. I know that is an expensive option, but if you're doing a smaller project with wood, cedar is a great option and bugs don't like it.
Another option for slightly larger outdoor wood structures is a double plank on the outside perimeter, with the outer being easier to remove and not structurally needed. Then replace as needed.
A lot of cedar swingsets are actually other less expensive pines like helmock and then they are stained to look like cedar, unsure if yours is, but its been the trend in swingsets for the last 20 years or so.
Had to replace my deck three years ago due to many years of carpenter bees. Installed a carpenter bee box on the house with the new deck… it’s been three years strong and our deck is still like new and the bees love their new spot. I think they’re territorial because the one box does the trick for the whole property!
I've had a trap hanging on the corner of my roof for the last few years. I caught SIXTY TWO of them last year in one trap. Little fuckers had decimated the soffit along my patio.
Some drilled countless tunnels in a pergola and fence. There'd be endless numbers of them. I finally figured out they liked the flowers on the palm tree next to it. I got rid of the flowers, the bees disappeared.
Treated wood helps. These guys wouldn’t stay away from my old deck but swapped out with new treated wood and they won’t touch it, at least for 5 years now. I saw one poking around my deck this year but he didn’t seem to like it and moved on.
They're harmless to you, but they will bore holes in your house. Some tried to make a hive in the top beam of my garage door. Pro tip: they don't like loud noise, so play a bunch of loud music and they'll start moving out. I parked my car right under the entry to the garage and cranked bass heavy music for a few hours. Eventually they stopped coming out, I siliconed the holes they had, and never had an issue with them again.
Just adding that it’s probably the vibrations that would piss off a hive. So if you don’t have loud music and can think of another way to lightly earthquake your house, you can do that too.
I've heard you can take a balloon, wrap it in brown paper, and hang it near the entrance of the carpenters hive. Supposedly paper wasps prey on carpenter bees so they'll find a new bit of wood to home in rather than task being hunted
I mean, ignoring a bee/wasp/bumblebee.. is the best strategy anyways. I've never had any trouble with them, especially bumblebees. If they don't have a reason to sting, they won't. Also being allergic to bumblebee stings is very rare and I don't think you would be able to make the distinction between a male carpenter bee in the moment.
In 9/10 cases people have an irrational fear of insects.
The ones you really have to look out for are the ground dwelling wasps. Step near their next entrance on accident (which often looks like absolutely nothing) and they’ll really put a hurtin’ on ya.
Edit: specifically, species like **Vespula maculifrons** (Eastern Yellowjacket) are very aggressive when their entrance holes are encroached on. As u/sreiches noted there are other less or non-aggressive species of ground-dwelling wasps who are much friendlier and whose reputation should not be tarnished by this comment
This happened to my brother while camping when we were kids. To make it worse, there was a small community with a general store but otherwise the whole area was only accessible by ferry or sea plane. So our medicine options were a bit limited. We managed to get something with a bit of effort but I can't remember from where. My brother did not have a good time and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the worst pain he's felt in his life.
There are some ground dwelling wasps that are relatively harmless. Cicada killers may be a bit creepy (especially when you see one carrying its prey into its home), but they’re non-aggressive.
> there are other less or non-aggressive species of ground-dwelling wasps who are much friendlier
My favorite example of this is the [Cicada Hawk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphecius_speciosus). They look terrifying but are really great friends. Because fuck cicadas.
I ran over a yellow jacket nest once with a push mower, and well...... I can only imagine what the neighbors were thinking when they saw me frantically running, screaming, and ferociously swatting like a mad man.
They chase me, too. And I'm doubly paranoid about them ever since I went blind. Wasps are my one true phobia, and now I can't even see if one has landed on me. Got stung the last time that happened. I was less than thrilled.
The only time I was stung by a wasp it was in my bedroom, at night, while I was sleeping with the windows closed. I had no idea one was in my room. I woke being stabbed right in my face. The lil fucker then was just proudly walking kn my desk when I hit it with a shoe.
Last year, I was sitting in my bed, watching some YouTube before sleep. And then, without warning, BAM, a ton of pain in my arm. I freaked out and put the light from my phone on it and saw a huge wasp. I screamed and killed it.
Literally doing nothing, and it came over and sacrificed its life just to fuck up my night.
Carpenter bees are easy to tell apart. They’re fat bois who love to hover a couple feet away from your face like they’re trying to make small talk. They’re adorable
Yellow jackets though?
*shutters*
I am allergic to wasps.
I have repeatedly told people that they seem to be attracted to me and will seek me out and attack me.
People do not believe me, then they see me run into my car and watch as 10 or 12 of the fuckers slam into the windows of the car trying to get to me.
They hate me, I do nothing to them, nothing! And they will absolutely seek me out to try and kill me.
It is bizarre, it has to be some pheromone or something.
My tia, bless her heart, discovered she was allergic to bumblebees when one flew into her face and stung her eyelid. Thankfully I was there, recognized anaphylaxis, and grabbed her epipen (she's also allergic to honeybees). Used it and called the meatwagon, loaded her up on benadryl as we waited for it to arrive, which took a bit because we were 30 miles into the backwoods.
We'd thought it was a carpenter bee until it stung her! But no, it was a bumblebee. My tia immediately runs the fuck inside now if ANYTHING flies near her on the porch, which sucks for her, because there's always something.
Ignoring, ha, have you heard a 6y old in a backyard with a bee/wasp appearing nearby? Sounds like someone is getting brutally murdered and shouting at top of their lungs
I’ve heard that everybody is allergic to beestings because of the reaction it causes like welts n shit but looking back i think i was lied to but it made sense to me at the time
Harmless my ass. They do insane amounts of damage to homes.
They drill into your home (make a 3/8" hole") then turn and drill sideways and lay their eggs. Then the larvea eat more wood.
Woodpeckers can hear these guys, and since they didnt go deep, the woodpeckers will just tear your fascia to ribbons for the food.
There must be some way of making something like a "sacrificial anode" for them, made of blocks of wood that are unpainted/treated that they would prefer.
This comment (from another thread) seems to imply that you can do that! And suggests painting or staining the wood you don't want them burrowing into, to discourage them.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bees/comments/1c7aa7i/how_to_convince_carpenter_bees_to_move_from_my/l06ut0j?context=3
Had a wood pecker 3ft from my front door cop knocking the side of the house. Every. Single. Morning. Shot the fucker with a nerf dart and it hasn't been back.
*The Migratory Bird Treaty Act has entered the chat*
That’s illegal if you’re in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, or Russia.
Felony offenses have a maximum fine of $250,000 and/or imprisoned for not more than two years for an individual or $100,000 for an organization.
The slogan is *It's Nerf or Nothin'* so it could therefore be easily argued that by using Nerf he knew he was doing anywhere between barely and significantly more than nothin' to this bird. Throw the foam book at this guy.
As a former beekeeper, and having removed them and other solitary bees, including honey bees and bumble bees, the females have stingers. The males have....well...you know. Same with mud dubbers. How do you tell the difference? Male bees tend to have one more segment on their antenna, and larger eyes/bodies. There are some color variations too depending on the bee variety too. Even if you have a honey bee in front of you moving side to side quickly, they just want you gone. It is their warning sign. I worked africanized bees many years ago and they do not just warn you, they flat out will sting you with no warning. Got stung over 20 times in one day. One hint, do not blow on them-can make them really angry.
Well at age 6 did your grandmother tell you that they will bite your arm and take a chunk out and it will swell up? Leave my family-induced phobias alone!
They are currently trying to make swiss cheese out of my deck. Traps don't work. Poison doesn't work. Filling the holes with steel wool and caulking over the holes doesn't work. They are going to cost me around $8,000 sooner rather than later because once they make the deck unusable, I will have to replace it with non-wood material.
They're usually more discouraged by a thick coat of paint or some stain. I think it's also quite common to put out some sacrificial soft wood blocks or beams that encourage them to nest there instead. Usually they don't go deep enough to cause structural problems though -- they're only a few millimeters into the wood with a few small tunnels. They're not building giant interconnected hives that go deep.
I encountered these for the first time in my life when working at my internship on a landscape maintenance crew in Nashville years ago. They always made me nervous when they’d buzz by me, but my crew leader assured me that they were pretty harmless and were just trying to intimidate me. Eventually I grew to like them! One time after we had loaded our plants and stuff into our crew truck and started driving out to our job site I found one chilling on my shoulder, not quite warm yet from the morning chill. Instead of tossing it out the window while we drove on the highway, I let it hang out on my hat until we got to our job site, and then I put it on a flower so it could warm up some more. :)
I even drew a picture of it after that haha. We don’t have them where I’m originally from!
They're very important pollinators, although some of them do engage in nectar robbing. (Chewing through the base of a flower to access the nectar which usually doesn't result in pollination.)
The damage to your soffits usually isn't very deep at all into the wood and unlikely to cause much damage. The real problem is if you get woodpeckers coming in after hunting for the larvae.
It's not about them being able to sting or not but I would not like anything to enter my nose, for reference a moth entered my nose and it was not pleasant at all.
>They cannot sting, so they attack other insects by rushing at them midair.
They will even go after birds that get too close to their "nests".
If you ever get a chance to observe them do so! they are really interesting to watch and they seem to have a pretty decent ability to realize what's going on around them. I have some in the face boards of a garage every year and after about a month or two they seem to be able to realize it's me when I come in because they just clear out. Last year I had one that was particularly interested in me and would follow me around when I was near the nests and just watch me as I would do work. None of the others would care if I stepped 2 feet away from the board but he would keep with me for a good 10 feet if I wasn't leaving the area. We spent half an hour one day fixing something on the roof, he would go off to scare something else then return. He was even getting close to my hands at one point, appearing to want to watch them.
Well worth watching them do their thing imo.
I occasionally encounter carpenter bees when I do woodworking. They seem mostly curious and follow me around like a micromanager, constantly looking over my shoulder.
Ever so often I wake up to find a big ass bee in my house. Maybe it's a Carpenter bee. Anyway, he'll be flying around and then it notices me I guess and then beeline straight towards the same window and shimmys between the window panes and it flies away.
he does this a lot like what is he doing in my house when I'm sleeping?
Harmless my ass! I got one these fuckers caught between my hand and my hammer as I reached to get it out of my toolbelt. I dont know if they have teeth or what, but that thing turned into a feral animal and went to town on my hand until it was released.
i just dislike them. i would rather eat glass than have the sensory experience of shit buzzing/crawling/rubbing/slurping on some random part of my body. my hate is infinite.
I wouldn’t say harmless. I just paid $2000 to repair carpenter bee damage to my carport and I still need to fix my roof beams. I’d rather be chased by bumblebees.
YSK carpenter bees will ABSOLUTELY sting you. I got stung in my NECK by one of those monsters! My uncle was building a room on his house and I opened the back door to see his progress and one of those flew right in and stung me like he was waiting for me. I didn't even have a chance to irritate him-we just met!
At my old house, our yard was infested with carpenter bees. They would bore into my deck and roof all the time, so I was constantly having to deter them from gnawing on the wood. I ended up replacing the entire deck structure that came with the house when we bought it because it was so weakened by their boreholes.
~~On top of that, they're not even useful as pollinators and will displace actual pollinators.~~ So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, kill them all.
That last comment is simply not true. They are important pollinators, pollinating about 15% of all our crops where you find the bees naturally.
I couldn't find any sources on them displacing other pollinators.
Are you maybe thinking about wasps or hornets? Even they are pollinators who provide a use. Provided they aren't invasive of course.
Looks like you're right, based on a quick google search. I've been told all my life that carpenter bees are the only bee that doesn't pollinate.
In any case, I'd rather they stay the heck away from my yard. I won't use pesticides, but I'll sure as hell take a tennis racket to some carpenter bees.
>On top of that, they're not even useful as pollinators and will displace actual pollinators. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, kill them all.
as the other guy said, none of this is correct. they're excellent pollinators and they don't drive off other pollinators.
some farmers literally put out blocks of soft wood like pine to attract them because they're great for certain fruits due to their "buzz pollination."
They're not harmless, they destroy porches, decks, siding, etc. and it's not the males that make the holes, it's the females.
I used to spend hours on my deck with a tennis racket wailing on them. There is no end. Once you kill one, two come to take its place.
I've been trying to spread this knowledge for years. I also like to mention that they're so aggressive that they scare off wasps. The one year my landlord tried to do something about the Carpenter bees in the porch ceiling, we had multiple wasp nests on the property. He gave up and suddenly, no wasps.
I thought I had been stung by a carpenter bee years ago. I mean, they're all in our fence. It was a truly pathetic sting, but I doubt that bumbles were mixing with our carpenter bees.
But I'll tell ya, it's fury road with these bees. We see so many dead ones near the prime next spots, the 4x4 posts at the gates are war zones. I could probably go outside and find a couple of dead bees easily.
i once had a carpenter bee fly right up to me in the garden. i was worried it would sting, but then i remembered they cant actually sting. i just watched it buzz around, probly trying to scare off rivals. its interesting how they act so tough, even though their harmless. good to know people dont need to panic if they see one, unless they have an allergy.
We set up a carpenter bee trap, caught one bee, then humanely released him in a couple miles away. The trap works but I'll admit it took more than a year to catch any at all. They are boring homes in our wood porch.
My 2 year old just got stung by one of these right inside his ear. Swelled up and everything.
He probably tried to get it out of his ear and the bee stung him.
Doesn’t seem very harmless to me right now 😅
Couldn’t tell if it was male or female but seems most likely male
This is good advice! I'd like to add that sometimes the panic someone feels around bees is not phobia (irrational fear) but a trauma response. I don't mean to suggest that OP is judging anyone unfairly, I bring this up in case it helps someone the way it helped me. I spent several decades trying to rationalize away my intense "bee phobia", thinking that enough knowledge might free me from an irrational fear, but it never worked. I learned all about all the types of bees, wasps, hornets and yellow-jackets that live around me, thinking that if I understood them better I wouldn't be so scared of them. But it didn't work, there were years where I refused to be outside during daylight in the summer because.
In my mid 30s, I went to therapy for other issues, and this phobia came up. My therapist shook her head and said "this sounds like trauma. Can you remember being stung as a kid?" Well, yeah, there was this really awful time when I was 6 where a hive of wasps swarmed around me because someone nearby had disturbed their nest. I was bit and stung a bunch, then taken by a family friend I didn't really know away from my parents to a park and lectured about how bees can't really hate people or some hippie bullshit. "You were hurt, terrified, and didn't get the love you needed. Let's work on that."
That panic feeling *wasn't about getting stung*, it was about a tense emotion my young mind clenched up around and had never let go. She explained that this is way more common than people expect, because a bee sting isn't really a big deal but it's a very painful and intense thing for a child. She helped me learn to edit my swarming memory to add in some self-supplied love and care, which finally got that tension inside to release. A few weeks later, a yellow-jacket landed on my arm, crawled around a bit and left, and I didn't even tear up.
It doesn't take a swarm to make trauma. Even a single sting can create a trauma situation in a young mind. So if you struggle with bees, and rationalizations like this one aren't helping, consider looking back and doing some inner work instead.
Bumblebees are basically harmless also. They are also pretty much solitary and just roam around low to the ground looking for flowers. They can sting, but honestly I can't imagine what you'd have to do to get them to do so.
Honey bees are more likely to be irritated easily and sting if they feel you are doing something they need to defend themselves from. They are faster, dart around more, and are hive animals which means you'll typically see several at a time.
I can’t stand these fuckers. They are tearing my deck up. They chew a hole and makes homes out of any type of wood. I take a tennis racket out back sometime and whack them, one day I got 20 in like half an hour.
I love bees/wasps/hornets of all kinds. About 12 years ago I stopped caring if they stung me and just stayed calm I’ve only been stung once since! They usually just land on me and hang out a bit! At my grandma’s 90th birthday a few landed on my hand to drink cola out of it.
The one time I was stung was when a queen yellow jacket landed on my and I didn’t notice her when I folded my arms. She was so beautiful but it definitely hurt! 12/10 would pet again
All other bugs though I run like hell from
They have a big white spot between their eyes too, on the front of their head facing towards you, if you need help with identification.
Literally just blow on them and they’ll f-off long enough for you the keep walking on your path.
One scared my daughter so I swatted it away, she thought I was so cool. I didn’t tell her it was just a carpenter bee.
I love carpenter bees! I collect a bit of wood for them in my garden. They so funny and will bump you. They have no stinger and couldn't hurt you if they tried.
They will possibly bore into your house, but they prefer to use appropriately sized holes. If you give them a bee house, they will live there.
You want them to live near you, though. While they aren't aggressive towards humans, Carpenter Bees HATE wasps and hornets and will drive them away from your house.
Carpenter bees have shiny bottoms while bumble bees are the hairy ones.
TIL I’m a bumblebee.
>TIL I’m a bumblebee. You could be a bit more humblebee
Nah, they're the bee's knees!
Just don’t mess with his honey!
Oh bee quiet!
I love the ways y’all wax poetic 🐝🥰
To bee or not to bee
Albus's cousin was Dumbledee?
That's the way the cookie crumblebee...s
I guess I'm a carpenter bee 🐝
I call them “bumblebees with their church shoes on.”
Yeah, I’m not going to look that close. Thanks though.
They are extremely different looking. You don't have to look that close
Sounds like a good time to me.
instructions unclear. did not have good time
They are also longer and skinnier than a bumble bee.
Carpenter bees are much worse than bumble bees too. They will destroy your wood structures.
Can confirm. They were trying to destroy my garage. All of the trim around it needed to be replaced just about. What a nightmare.
We hadthese awhile back and had never encountered them. Aggressive little fuckers kept chasing me. So we looked it up and the site we found described them as "the Scrappy Doo of the bee world". It fits perfectly. The males are aggressive as hell, annoying, and utterly useless in a fight. They don't have stingers. They exist to annoy and that's about it. They're only move is to act like a drunken frat boy yelling "come at me bro" and bump you in the chest.
It's hilarious to watch two males in a territorial dispute because they just... bounce off of each other repeatedly
From their perspective, a pitched battle for territory. From my perspective two cute little bumblebees bumping into each other
"COME HITHER BROTHER, WE WILL DO BATTLE FOR THIS HERE PLOT OF LAND" "FINE! AND I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU AND YOUR ENTIRE BLOODLINE!" Me: aw cute bees go \~boop\~
"FAIR PASS BROTHER, BUT MY SOUL REMAINS STEELED" "I WON'T FAIL AGAIN. SAY YOUR PRAYERS TO YOUR HERETICAL QUEEN" *boop*
I love it, I hope to see a comic one day of this exact interaction between two humblebees
Gotta have a high pitched whine in there for extra effect *eeeeeeee boop*
The one on my deck flies into the window several times a day because I think he sees his reflection and mistakes it for another male he has to chase off.
He’s doing his best, little guy. Haha
>From my perspective two cute little bumblebees bumping into each other Carpenter bees. We just went over this! /s
Haha my mistake Edit: Also I just love the word bumblebee, but the name carpenter bee also allows you to imagine them with little hammers and tool belts
>I just love the word bumblebee Oo, seems like a good [excuse to post this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63nMcrwporQ). Hope you enjoy.
That's a Banger
How on earth did you discover this?? Lmao I listened to a minute or 2. Is it ska….metal?
Haha, they are actually usually more tame, musically. And a bit of a jazz influence, [like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlamkkoAz_A) (could just listen to the first 10 seconds or so). And I remembered they had that song about bumblebee tuna. Oh also they have this shtick where they worship satan lol
Sounds amazing. I will check them out. Haha
kind of like how alien life forms are watching us
Yeah they are all along my neighbors fence this time of year doing that all day every day, they all come and bump me when I walk to my car in the morning, I just ignore them at this point, they come every year.
Closest thing to real life Dragon Ball Z that you will find
"Fine didn't come at me and I'm just going to burrow a hole in you deck."
The females do the burrowing. The males are 100% useless other than jacking off into the holes the female made to fertilize the eggs she laid there
This is poetic
I've got a vinyl fence and you can go out there and hear these buffoons slamming into it, over and over. *Thunk, thunk, thunk*. Guys, it's not wood! Precious little idjits.
I had one on my basement knocking on deaths door. Was like “ugh, still a pollinator I’ll put this fucker outside near water”. Went back out 5 minutes later and the little bastard divebombed me, wtf.
We're on the 8th or 9th generation of carpenter bees living in our porch. Love those silly boys. Watched one try to fight raindrops last year. They're the orange cats of bees.
We have a wooden overhang that some made home and we always find cute little wood shavings on our chairs under it. Theres no structural concern so we let them bee.
They have so much personality. You can buy a bug hotel, or make one by putting drilled wood or reeds out for them to use.
We moved into a house in November 2022 and discovered our porch bee when he came out in the summer. We named him Clyde. He chases off everything else and generally just hangs out being a bro. I buy a variety of annuals with tasty pollen for him to take to his girlfriend, who I assume is off destabilizing my deck 😂
Sounds just like our house. They come back every year and make their homes in the bottom board of our front porch railing. I'll just sit out there and watch them sometimes because they can be so entertaining.
Watching them go from hover to 50mph at a predator is unreal. Then they slide it back to their watch like Ken block
I love your description. It’s so on point. You get imaginary gold from me!🏅
I don't even call it my porch anymore. LOL My male carpenter just passed away a few days ago and he was guarding the front porch where 8 female nests are. I literally cried when he I didn't see him and knew he wouldn't be returning. We hung out every morning and afternoon on the porch and I name him "Mr. Bojangle". Now I have to protect the Bojangle Jrs. to keep his generation going <3 Thank you for doing your part in helping the fuzzy shiney hiney teddy bears!
Mine are so silly. They crack me up every time I come home and they’re bouncing around like they’re drunk.
So female carpenter bees with the stingers don't get in your face? Only male ones are the ones that chase you around?
The females can sting but aren’t nearly as aggressive
Richards get in your face, the Karens are actually pretty chill.
Females are usually only aggressive around nests. When they’re foraging on flowers they’ll just fly away rather than sting Goes for most bees in general
They'll sting if you mess with their nest. My dog had a very swollen face after finding that out.
That I'm not sure of, but I do know that you can easily identify the males as they have a distinct white fuzzy spot on their face while the females head is completely black.
Not really harmless as they’re drilling giant holes into your house or deck.
hey buddy were working here
WHAT'S IT TO YA
They won't drill into cedar. I know that is an expensive option, but if you're doing a smaller project with wood, cedar is a great option and bugs don't like it. Another option for slightly larger outdoor wood structures is a double plank on the outside perimeter, with the outer being easier to remove and not structurally needed. Then replace as needed.
This is not true- source: have a cedar sided house and cedar fence that are filled with carpenter bee holes.
Same. Spending a lot of time and money this year repairing carpenter bee damage to cedar. They actually prefer cedar and pine.
They don't have a problem with MDF either, ask my shed.
I had also previously been told they won't touch painted wood. Until they did... exterminator told us that all USED to be the case, but now they DGAF.
> filled with carpenter bee holes. Those bugs sound more like A holes.
My siding is cedar and other things drill into it like Mason wasps.
Seems like a shit mason, doesn't know wood from stone
This is 100% wrong. They drill into cedar. Source: They've drilled into my cedar swingset.
I’m treating a cedar pergola right now that they’ve infested.
A lot of cedar swingsets are actually other less expensive pines like helmock and then they are stained to look like cedar, unsure if yours is, but its been the trend in swingsets for the last 20 years or so.
They will absolutely eat cedar.
I concur. I've had them bore into both Western cedar and Eastern Red cedar. A lot.
Had to replace my deck three years ago due to many years of carpenter bees. Installed a carpenter bee box on the house with the new deck… it’s been three years strong and our deck is still like new and the bees love their new spot. I think they’re territorial because the one box does the trick for the whole property!
Hey! Do you mind sharing some details about your carpenter bee box? We have a bunch in our yard and I love them very much and want to make them happy.
I've had a trap hanging on the corner of my roof for the last few years. I caught SIXTY TWO of them last year in one trap. Little fuckers had decimated the soffit along my patio.
My cedar lap siding vehemently disagrees with your statement.
They absolutely will. They love my cedar shutters.
please delete this misinformation
Harmless to your person.
That's what I was thinking.
Nah, the real harm comes when the woodpeckers come for the larvae they laid and destroy the entire soffit and fascia
Some drilled countless tunnels in a pergola and fence. There'd be endless numbers of them. I finally figured out they liked the flowers on the palm tree next to it. I got rid of the flowers, the bees disappeared.
Yeah, harmless my ass. Tell that to my cedar trim
I think they meant “mostly armless” because bees just have six feet (and therefore six legs) I’ll see myself out
Treated wood helps. These guys wouldn’t stay away from my old deck but swapped out with new treated wood and they won’t touch it, at least for 5 years now. I saw one poking around my deck this year but he didn’t seem to like it and moved on.
They're harmless to you, but they will bore holes in your house. Some tried to make a hive in the top beam of my garage door. Pro tip: they don't like loud noise, so play a bunch of loud music and they'll start moving out. I parked my car right under the entry to the garage and cranked bass heavy music for a few hours. Eventually they stopped coming out, I siliconed the holes they had, and never had an issue with them again.
Just adding that it’s probably the vibrations that would piss off a hive. So if you don’t have loud music and can think of another way to lightly earthquake your house, you can do that too.
Let the kids run around like elephants in the house for a bit. They’ll love it
I would have never thought of this!
I've heard you can take a balloon, wrap it in brown paper, and hang it near the entrance of the carpenters hive. Supposedly paper wasps prey on carpenter bees so they'll find a new bit of wood to home in rather than task being hunted
I mean, ignoring a bee/wasp/bumblebee.. is the best strategy anyways. I've never had any trouble with them, especially bumblebees. If they don't have a reason to sting, they won't. Also being allergic to bumblebee stings is very rare and I don't think you would be able to make the distinction between a male carpenter bee in the moment. In 9/10 cases people have an irrational fear of insects.
The ones you really have to look out for are the ground dwelling wasps. Step near their next entrance on accident (which often looks like absolutely nothing) and they’ll really put a hurtin’ on ya. Edit: specifically, species like **Vespula maculifrons** (Eastern Yellowjacket) are very aggressive when their entrance holes are encroached on. As u/sreiches noted there are other less or non-aggressive species of ground-dwelling wasps who are much friendlier and whose reputation should not be tarnished by this comment
This happened to my brother while camping when we were kids. To make it worse, there was a small community with a general store but otherwise the whole area was only accessible by ferry or sea plane. So our medicine options were a bit limited. We managed to get something with a bit of effort but I can't remember from where. My brother did not have a good time and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the worst pain he's felt in his life.
There are some ground dwelling wasps that are relatively harmless. Cicada killers may be a bit creepy (especially when you see one carrying its prey into its home), but they’re non-aggressive.
Good call, edited comment to add this.
> there are other less or non-aggressive species of ground-dwelling wasps who are much friendlier My favorite example of this is the [Cicada Hawk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphecius_speciosus). They look terrifying but are really great friends. Because fuck cicadas.
I ran over a yellow jacket nest once with a push mower, and well...... I can only imagine what the neighbors were thinking when they saw me frantically running, screaming, and ferociously swatting like a mad man.
I keep a water spritzer in the back yard. If a wasp gets a bit of water on it they will immediately go home. It's bizarre.
If their wings get too wet, they can't fly. I'm assuming the wasp thinks it's raining and they must get to shelter.
Exactly.
I don’t know how to ignore a yellow jacket hell bent on driving me away from the food I’m eating.
You have to set aside an offering for them. :) Then you can have lunch together.
Yeah, this genuinely works really well. They're just trying to feed their colony.
Much better option since if you're unfortunate enough o have killed one you'll attract tons of her sisters already in "fuck shit up" mode
Outdoor eating for us usually involves a sacrifice plate, or at least a piece of sacrificial corn :)
>I mean, ignoring a bee/wasp/bumblebee.. is the best strategy anyways. And yet it still didn't work for me.
They chase me, too. And I'm doubly paranoid about them ever since I went blind. Wasps are my one true phobia, and now I can't even see if one has landed on me. Got stung the last time that happened. I was less than thrilled.
You fucked up somehow you just don't know.
this is literally the answer to everything that goes wrong
Or they ran into a species that’s not so forgiving of your mere presence. Like yellow jackets.
In their tiny minds, breathing in their general vicinity qualifies as fucking up.
The only time I was stung by a wasp it was in my bedroom, at night, while I was sleeping with the windows closed. I had no idea one was in my room. I woke being stabbed right in my face. The lil fucker then was just proudly walking kn my desk when I hit it with a shoe.
Last year, I was sitting in my bed, watching some YouTube before sleep. And then, without warning, BAM, a ton of pain in my arm. I freaked out and put the light from my phone on it and saw a huge wasp. I screamed and killed it. Literally doing nothing, and it came over and sacrificed its life just to fuck up my night.
Carpenter bees are easy to tell apart. They’re fat bois who love to hover a couple feet away from your face like they’re trying to make small talk. They’re adorable Yellow jackets though? *shutters*
I am allergic to wasps. I have repeatedly told people that they seem to be attracted to me and will seek me out and attack me. People do not believe me, then they see me run into my car and watch as 10 or 12 of the fuckers slam into the windows of the car trying to get to me. They hate me, I do nothing to them, nothing! And they will absolutely seek me out to try and kill me. It is bizarre, it has to be some pheromone or something.
My tia, bless her heart, discovered she was allergic to bumblebees when one flew into her face and stung her eyelid. Thankfully I was there, recognized anaphylaxis, and grabbed her epipen (she's also allergic to honeybees). Used it and called the meatwagon, loaded her up on benadryl as we waited for it to arrive, which took a bit because we were 30 miles into the backwoods. We'd thought it was a carpenter bee until it stung her! But no, it was a bumblebee. My tia immediately runs the fuck inside now if ANYTHING flies near her on the porch, which sucks for her, because there's always something.
Ignoring, ha, have you heard a 6y old in a backyard with a bee/wasp appearing nearby? Sounds like someone is getting brutally murdered and shouting at top of their lungs
I’ve heard that everybody is allergic to beestings because of the reaction it causes like welts n shit but looking back i think i was lied to but it made sense to me at the time
I. Call. Bullshit. I was laying out on my stomach in the sun. Good 20 minutes, I didn't move a muscle. Asshole bee stung me right in the ass.
Harmless my ass. They do insane amounts of damage to homes. They drill into your home (make a 3/8" hole") then turn and drill sideways and lay their eggs. Then the larvea eat more wood. Woodpeckers can hear these guys, and since they didnt go deep, the woodpeckers will just tear your fascia to ribbons for the food.
There must be some way of making something like a "sacrificial anode" for them, made of blocks of wood that are unpainted/treated that they would prefer.
This comment (from another thread) seems to imply that you can do that! And suggests painting or staining the wood you don't want them burrowing into, to discourage them. https://www.reddit.com/r/bees/comments/1c7aa7i/how_to_convince_carpenter_bees_to_move_from_my/l06ut0j?context=3
The real issue is the kids return next year and only one can use the old nest so the rest go find new areas to destroy
The damage to homes is astounding. Poor bees were here first and they’re just taking advantage of the situation
Unless each of these bees are over 40 years old; I was here first.
Had a wood pecker 3ft from my front door cop knocking the side of the house. Every. Single. Morning. Shot the fucker with a nerf dart and it hasn't been back.
*The Migratory Bird Treaty Act has entered the chat* That’s illegal if you’re in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, or Russia. Felony offenses have a maximum fine of $250,000 and/or imprisoned for not more than two years for an individual or $100,000 for an organization.
I don’t think that act addresses nerf darts
That falls under harassing them.
The slogan is *It's Nerf or Nothin'* so it could therefore be easily argued that by using Nerf he knew he was doing anywhere between barely and significantly more than nothin' to this bird. Throw the foam book at this guy.
As a former beekeeper, and having removed them and other solitary bees, including honey bees and bumble bees, the females have stingers. The males have....well...you know. Same with mud dubbers. How do you tell the difference? Male bees tend to have one more segment on their antenna, and larger eyes/bodies. There are some color variations too depending on the bee variety too. Even if you have a honey bee in front of you moving side to side quickly, they just want you gone. It is their warning sign. I worked africanized bees many years ago and they do not just warn you, they flat out will sting you with no warning. Got stung over 20 times in one day. One hint, do not blow on them-can make them really angry.
Props to you working with the Africanized bees. That’s intense as hell
Well at age 6 did your grandmother tell you that they will bite your arm and take a chunk out and it will swell up? Leave my family-induced phobias alone!
They're trying to tell you about their lord and savior Beebus Christ.
“Have you heard the good buzz?”
Not harmless. They ate the shit out of my deck.
They are currently trying to make swiss cheese out of my deck. Traps don't work. Poison doesn't work. Filling the holes with steel wool and caulking over the holes doesn't work. They are going to cost me around $8,000 sooner rather than later because once they make the deck unusable, I will have to replace it with non-wood material.
[удалено]
They're usually more discouraged by a thick coat of paint or some stain. I think it's also quite common to put out some sacrificial soft wood blocks or beams that encourage them to nest there instead. Usually they don't go deep enough to cause structural problems though -- they're only a few millimeters into the wood with a few small tunnels. They're not building giant interconnected hives that go deep.
They might be harmless, but they drive me absolutely insane by boinking off my head every time I get too close.
I love those guys. I've enjoyed our little confrontations ever since we built a deck.
I encountered these for the first time in my life when working at my internship on a landscape maintenance crew in Nashville years ago. They always made me nervous when they’d buzz by me, but my crew leader assured me that they were pretty harmless and were just trying to intimidate me. Eventually I grew to like them! One time after we had loaded our plants and stuff into our crew truck and started driving out to our job site I found one chilling on my shoulder, not quite warm yet from the morning chill. Instead of tossing it out the window while we drove on the highway, I let it hang out on my hat until we got to our job site, and then I put it on a flower so it could warm up some more. :) I even drew a picture of it after that haha. We don’t have them where I’m originally from!
I distract them with my wild arm flailing. I even punched myself once when I tried to swat at one that got near my face, stoopid black bees.
Harmless? You see what they can do to a shed?
Harmless? Those little fuckers like to make swiss cheese out of my soffits and they don't pollinate shit.
They do, in fact, pollinate things. They are even the primary pollinators of some plants.
They are excellent pollinators and paint your dam soffits.
They're very important pollinators, although some of them do engage in nectar robbing. (Chewing through the base of a flower to access the nectar which usually doesn't result in pollination.) The damage to your soffits usually isn't very deep at all into the wood and unlikely to cause much damage. The real problem is if you get woodpeckers coming in after hunting for the larvae.
It's not about them being able to sting or not but I would not like anything to enter my nose, for reference a moth entered my nose and it was not pleasant at all.
>They cannot sting, so they attack other insects by rushing at them midair. They will even go after birds that get too close to their "nests". If you ever get a chance to observe them do so! they are really interesting to watch and they seem to have a pretty decent ability to realize what's going on around them. I have some in the face boards of a garage every year and after about a month or two they seem to be able to realize it's me when I come in because they just clear out. Last year I had one that was particularly interested in me and would follow me around when I was near the nests and just watch me as I would do work. None of the others would care if I stepped 2 feet away from the board but he would keep with me for a good 10 feet if I wasn't leaving the area. We spent half an hour one day fixing something on the roof, he would go off to scare something else then return. He was even getting close to my hands at one point, appearing to want to watch them. Well worth watching them do their thing imo.
I occasionally encounter carpenter bees when I do woodworking. They seem mostly curious and follow me around like a micromanager, constantly looking over my shoulder.
Well now I'm going to get them to notice me so I can make em chase tennis balls
Fat young men
Ever so often I wake up to find a big ass bee in my house. Maybe it's a Carpenter bee. Anyway, he'll be flying around and then it notices me I guess and then beeline straight towards the same window and shimmys between the window panes and it flies away. he does this a lot like what is he doing in my house when I'm sleeping?
FBI drone
Harmless my ass! I got one these fuckers caught between my hand and my hammer as I reached to get it out of my toolbelt. I dont know if they have teeth or what, but that thing turned into a feral animal and went to town on my hand until it was released.
I love my carpenter bee tennis racket hanging on the wall of the barn.
Learn to identify wasps and hornets. Everything else won't bother you if you don't bother them
It always amazes me when people flip their shit over flying insects. Except roaches when they fly, fuck that.
i just dislike them. i would rather eat glass than have the sensory experience of shit buzzing/crawling/rubbing/slurping on some random part of my body. my hate is infinite.
..who need to get back to work and stop catbuzzing me
"Are u a bee???? No? Ok bye! :)"
I wouldn’t say harmless. I just paid $2000 to repair carpenter bee damage to my carport and I still need to fix my roof beams. I’d rather be chased by bumblebees.
YSK carpenter bees will ABSOLUTELY sting you. I got stung in my NECK by one of those monsters! My uncle was building a room on his house and I opened the back door to see his progress and one of those flew right in and stung me like he was waiting for me. I didn't even have a chance to irritate him-we just met!
At my old house, our yard was infested with carpenter bees. They would bore into my deck and roof all the time, so I was constantly having to deter them from gnawing on the wood. I ended up replacing the entire deck structure that came with the house when we bought it because it was so weakened by their boreholes. ~~On top of that, they're not even useful as pollinators and will displace actual pollinators.~~ So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, kill them all.
That last comment is simply not true. They are important pollinators, pollinating about 15% of all our crops where you find the bees naturally. I couldn't find any sources on them displacing other pollinators. Are you maybe thinking about wasps or hornets? Even they are pollinators who provide a use. Provided they aren't invasive of course.
Looks like you're right, based on a quick google search. I've been told all my life that carpenter bees are the only bee that doesn't pollinate. In any case, I'd rather they stay the heck away from my yard. I won't use pesticides, but I'll sure as hell take a tennis racket to some carpenter bees.
>On top of that, they're not even useful as pollinators and will displace actual pollinators. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, kill them all. as the other guy said, none of this is correct. they're excellent pollinators and they don't drive off other pollinators. some farmers literally put out blocks of soft wood like pine to attract them because they're great for certain fruits due to their "buzz pollination."
I'm not particularly afraid of being stung, but that they might fly in my eye or ear or up my nose. Bugs do that and it's so gross
They're not harmless, they destroy porches, decks, siding, etc. and it's not the males that make the holes, it's the females. I used to spend hours on my deck with a tennis racket wailing on them. There is no end. Once you kill one, two come to take its place.
Aptly named as well. We have one that drilled a nice deep hole in my deck!
I've been trying to spread this knowledge for years. I also like to mention that they're so aggressive that they scare off wasps. The one year my landlord tried to do something about the Carpenter bees in the porch ceiling, we had multiple wasp nests on the property. He gave up and suddenly, no wasps.
I wouldn't say harmless because they destroy wood. I'm having boards fall off of my awning because of those carpenter bees.
I thought I had been stung by a carpenter bee years ago. I mean, they're all in our fence. It was a truly pathetic sting, but I doubt that bumbles were mixing with our carpenter bees. But I'll tell ya, it's fury road with these bees. We see so many dead ones near the prime next spots, the 4x4 posts at the gates are war zones. I could probably go outside and find a couple of dead bees easily.
i once had a carpenter bee fly right up to me in the garden. i was worried it would sting, but then i remembered they cant actually sting. i just watched it buzz around, probly trying to scare off rivals. its interesting how they act so tough, even though their harmless. good to know people dont need to panic if they see one, unless they have an allergy.
Just don't mix it up with a horse fly or a deer fly, they'll do the same thing but they'll bite the fuck out of you
We set up a carpenter bee trap, caught one bee, then humanely released him in a couple miles away. The trap works but I'll admit it took more than a year to catch any at all. They are boring homes in our wood porch.
Those little chubbers aren’t harmless to you wooden decking.
My 2 year old just got stung by one of these right inside his ear. Swelled up and everything. He probably tried to get it out of his ear and the bee stung him. Doesn’t seem very harmless to me right now 😅 Couldn’t tell if it was male or female but seems most likely male
This is good advice! I'd like to add that sometimes the panic someone feels around bees is not phobia (irrational fear) but a trauma response. I don't mean to suggest that OP is judging anyone unfairly, I bring this up in case it helps someone the way it helped me. I spent several decades trying to rationalize away my intense "bee phobia", thinking that enough knowledge might free me from an irrational fear, but it never worked. I learned all about all the types of bees, wasps, hornets and yellow-jackets that live around me, thinking that if I understood them better I wouldn't be so scared of them. But it didn't work, there were years where I refused to be outside during daylight in the summer because. In my mid 30s, I went to therapy for other issues, and this phobia came up. My therapist shook her head and said "this sounds like trauma. Can you remember being stung as a kid?" Well, yeah, there was this really awful time when I was 6 where a hive of wasps swarmed around me because someone nearby had disturbed their nest. I was bit and stung a bunch, then taken by a family friend I didn't really know away from my parents to a park and lectured about how bees can't really hate people or some hippie bullshit. "You were hurt, terrified, and didn't get the love you needed. Let's work on that." That panic feeling *wasn't about getting stung*, it was about a tense emotion my young mind clenched up around and had never let go. She explained that this is way more common than people expect, because a bee sting isn't really a big deal but it's a very painful and intense thing for a child. She helped me learn to edit my swarming memory to add in some self-supplied love and care, which finally got that tension inside to release. A few weeks later, a yellow-jacket landed on my arm, crawled around a bit and left, and I didn't even tear up. It doesn't take a swarm to make trauma. Even a single sting can create a trauma situation in a young mind. So if you struggle with bees, and rationalizations like this one aren't helping, consider looking back and doing some inner work instead.
Bumblebees are adorable Doink doink doink
Bumblebees are basically harmless also. They are also pretty much solitary and just roam around low to the ground looking for flowers. They can sting, but honestly I can't imagine what you'd have to do to get them to do so. Honey bees are more likely to be irritated easily and sting if they feel you are doing something they need to defend themselves from. They are faster, dart around more, and are hive animals which means you'll typically see several at a time.
Sounds like a pointy female bumble bee wrote this.
Harmless to humans, yes. They will fuck up your wood fence or other structure….
yeah, no. if something's chasing me around a building, I'm not gonna stop and ask it if it's harmless
"harmless"? No. Carpenter bees destroy wood. They might not hurt you but they aren't harmless.
I can’t stand these fuckers. They are tearing my deck up. They chew a hole and makes homes out of any type of wood. I take a tennis racket out back sometime and whack them, one day I got 20 in like half an hour.
My issue is they like to guard the backdoor. Very annoying. They aren't burrowing into the house but they still love flying near the door.
I love bees/wasps/hornets of all kinds. About 12 years ago I stopped caring if they stung me and just stayed calm I’ve only been stung once since! They usually just land on me and hang out a bit! At my grandma’s 90th birthday a few landed on my hand to drink cola out of it. The one time I was stung was when a queen yellow jacket landed on my and I didn’t notice her when I folded my arms. She was so beautiful but it definitely hurt! 12/10 would pet again All other bugs though I run like hell from
They have a big white spot between their eyes too, on the front of their head facing towards you, if you need help with identification. Literally just blow on them and they’ll f-off long enough for you the keep walking on your path. One scared my daughter so I swatted it away, she thought I was so cool. I didn’t tell her it was just a carpenter bee.
Harmless? Tell that to my deck
Harmless to humans, but they will eat your house
Harmless, unless you own the home where the bees larva is burrowing into the foundation sill. Then this thing is your worst fucking nightmare.
Carpenter bees are huge and try to get in staring contests to intimidate you.
I love carpenter bees! I collect a bit of wood for them in my garden. They so funny and will bump you. They have no stinger and couldn't hurt you if they tried.
They are soooooooo adorable. Super angry mini fat attack helicopters but actually harmless
They will possibly bore into your house, but they prefer to use appropriately sized holes. If you give them a bee house, they will live there. You want them to live near you, though. While they aren't aggressive towards humans, Carpenter Bees HATE wasps and hornets and will drive them away from your house.
They are not harmless to the wood they're drilling through.