That BIG, BAD, BLACK BEE who gets in your face and buzzes angrily until you run away is named XYLOCOPA SONORINA, aka "Carpenter Bee"!
A male Carpenter bee can hover right in front of your eyes and buzz angrily as if it will sting you to death the very next second, but he is really like a carpenter with no nail, because the male Carpenter bee has no stinger! That is the truth! A male Carpenter bee can NOT sting you because it has NO stinger!
Like a yellow-bellied school bully, the male Carpenter bee is all show; when you stand up and tell it to buzz off, it runs home to mommy crying, "Nobody likes me! Everybody hates me!"
Carpenter bees should really be called "Convent bees" because their nest is strictly "Ladies only" - usually just mother, daughters, and sisters. Most of them stay home cleaning house and guarding the entrance whilst one goes out to collect pollen and nectar.
Like nuns, lady Carpenter bees do not look for trouble and are very even-tempered. When confronted or challenged, Lady Carpenter bees are most likely to just buzz off. The ladies ARE equipped with stingers, but about the only way to get stung is if you try to pick one up.
Honey bees, wasps, and hornets are just like people; each one has a distinct personality. Some are work-a-holics, some are real lazy, some are very aggressive, and others are extremely shy. Most people get stung by the lazy ones hiding between blades of grass or the petals of a flower whilst everyone else is working!
The really huge difference between carpenter bees, honey bees, wasps and hornets is that if you annoy or frighten a Carpenter Bee, it will get in your face, then fly away, but all of the others will either sting you, or call out reinforcements.
Which would you prefer in your garden: one Carpenter bee, or dozens of angry honey bees constantly arguing over position and ready to call out the hive if you get too close to them?
Yet, despite the facts, most everyone believes Carpenter bees are the bad guys! There are THOUSANDS of references to Carpenter Bees on the internet, and just about all of them list Carpenter bees as a "pest" to be exterminated!
Government, universities, commerce, industry, and homeowners are all in agreement that our Native American Bee is a pest to be exterminated!
In reality, Carpenter bees are the "good girls" because they do a better job of pollinating crops - and your garden flowers - than do honey bees, and you don't need to worry about you - or your children - getting stung, or needing to outrun an angry swarm!
In July, 2006, Science Magazine reported research extending back 100-years which clearly established honeybees are becoming increasingly selective in the flowers and crops they will pollinate. According to the lead writer, Koos Biesmeijer (University of Leeds) researches have yet to determine whether bees are responsible for plant declines, or changes in habitat, modern industrial farming, or other factors. We do know that it takes a Carpenter bee to give honey bees a gentle nudge over to your tomato or cantaloupe blossoms! Even then, a Carpenter bee does a more thorough job of dispersing pollen than honey bees; just look at their hairy legs!
All a Carpenter girl requires to be happy is pollen, nectar, and a piece of dead wood in an undisturbed area, and she will make your garden grow better than a miracle!
Carpenter bees do NOT eat wood, any more than woodpeckers eat wood! Like many other creatures, both prefer the "log cabin" lifestyle. That presents a great "Birds and the Bees" question you can ask your parent or teacher: "Why do we call birds that drill an hole in wood to make a nest for their babies (like these Yellow-Bellied Sapsuckers) "Woodpeckers" but when bees do the same thing, they are called "Carpenters"?"
As can be seen above, a Carpenter Bee nest is easily located by a precise small hole in a piece of wood (preference is for dead wood), or by sawdust suddenly appearing on garden plants.
Numerous websites complain about Carpenter bees building nests in the eaves of roofs, and direct you to immediately call an exterminator to apply the final solution. Carpenter bees are good mothers, and they also don't want their children contaminated with lead paint, so if you don't want Carpenter bees to nest in your eaves, paint your eaves! Better yet, put some dead wood in an undisturbed corner of your garden!
The life of a Carpenter bee is short (-one year), and hard. The Ladies drill out a tunnel for the nest, collect pollen and nectar, mix it into "bee bread" and roll it into a tunnel-sized ball to feed their youngsters. Eggs hatch in 2-3 days, larvae develop within a fortnight, the pupal stage lasts about 3-4 weeks, and then it is off to work!
You may have read on the internet that many farmers and "experts" call Carpenter bees " thieves" and "robbers" because Carpenter bees puncture blossoms to extract nectar for "bee bread".
As can be seen in the these photos, Carpenter bees do puncture petals, especially tubular blossoms where their long tongues can't reach the goodies safely, or in a timely manner. But most puncture wounds are caused, in fact, by the bees hooked feet hanging on to the blossom when the wind blows!
That may make a petal unsightly, but it certainly does not hinder pollination of the crop! You can see for yourself what damage the Lady's tongue is causing this squash blossom! (It clearly sets the tongues wagging in the hive, doesn't it?)
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Where ever you see Carpenter bee nests, you will see dead Carpenter bees. Some, like this one in a barrel cactus blossom, died proudly in the best of French "Tombe à son poste! tradition, with her extended tongue a monument to, "A mother's work is never done!" Native Americans, whether people, animal, bird, or insect, have always been especially susceptible to poison. Otherwise, death comes in the course of life; birds pluck them out of the air, geckos latch on to them when they land, and ants rush anywhere to finish up the job. The Carpenter Bee lying on my hat lost one leg to a gecko, its venom "too little, too late" to extract revenge. |
 
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Mothers who "work their fingers to the bone" for their children can easily identify with Carpenter bees because you will seldom find a dead Carpenter bee without tattered wings. Yet, like mothers everyone, no one bothers to thank Carpenter bees for all the good they do in this world. Instead, as THOUSANDS of internet web sites assure us, Carpenter bees are just:
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