You don’t want other carpenter bee females to continue to reuse the hole year after year.You may find old holes near newer ones.Īfter the proper treatment, you want to seal the hole for a couple of reasons: They frequently nest near each other and often in the same area yearly, causing extensive damage. It is not uncommon to find several pairs of carpenter bees nesting in one structure. They prefer to nest in woods greater than two inches thick. Common woods we find them in are redwood, cedar, and pine. Carpenter bees attack bare, unpainted or weathered softwoods. Here in Port Huron, Michigan we find these holes located underside wood surfaces, including siding, soffits, decks, overhangs, fence posts and window frames. They mate in the spring and set about to clean out and enlarge the old tunnels or to excavate new ones as brood chambers for their young. Newly developed adult carpenter bees emerge in August, feed on nectar and return to the tunnels over winter. The larvae that hatch from the eggs complete their development and pupate. She will then seal it all off to ensure its development before she repeats the process for the next egg. She will deposit an egg, bring in a portion of “bee bread”, a mixture of pollen and regurgitated nectar, which serves as food for newly hatched larvae to feed on. This channel serves as a main corridor from which she will drill small chambers a few inches deep. (Note: For this reason, simply spraying inside the hole doesn’t always do the trick.) The female carpenter bee will turn 90 degrees and bore a channel from 6 inches to as long as 4 feet. Although the hole appears to be only an inch or two deep, it rarely ends there. Gallery construction is a time- and energy-consuming process, and the female will preferentially refurbish an old nest rather than excavate a new one. She excavates the gallery at the rate of about one inch in six days. Female carpenter bees use their strong jaws (mandibles) creating a near-perfect hole, approximately 1/2 inch in diameter, around the diameter of her body. A single pair (male and female) occupies each nest. Prominent Characteristics Of Carpenter BeesĬarpenter bees get their name from their ability to drill through wood and nest in a single hole.
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