What Wood Do Carpenter Bees Not Like

The male bees die after mating with the female.

What wood do carpenter bees not like. Carpenter bees don t actually eat wood. And here are a final 10 fun facts about carpenter bees. Carpenter bees do not eat the wood that they burrow into. No doubt they seem to prefer anything soft with pine being a favorite.

If you re not allergic but are worried about bee stings you may want to consider purchasing and wearing a bee suit using a hand duster apply the chosen dust to each carpenter bee hole. They don t actually eat wood though. In fact i ve been amazed at the wide range of wood carpenter bees will utilize. While carpenter bees are solitary bees and don t attack in groups it s possible that you can be stung while performing a treatment.

The females bore holes by using their mandibles as a rasp against the wood while vigorously vibrating their bodies. Since their nest tunnels are limited in size they rarely do serious structural damage. They spit it back out leaving a pile of wood dust below the entrance to the nest. And unlike honey or bumble bees carpenter bees nest in wood rather than in the ground matts says so they leave behind round drill like holes.

Carpenter bees get their common name from their habit of boring into wood. As the bee drills into the wood coarse sawdust may be seen coming out of the hole and piling up beneath. Talking about infestation of carpenter bees it is closely related to the woods. So if you wish to deter them go with a hardwood if possible.

Although carpenter bees prefer softwoods such as cedar redwood or cypress they happily attack pine and most other species of wood. Even pressure treated wood is not immune from carpenter bee attack. Unlike other common bees such as honeybees and bumble bees that live in colonies carpenter bees are not social insects and build individual nests into trees outdoors or into the frames eaves or sides of buildings. Each nest features a single entrance that usually spreads to connecting tunnels called cells these are the nurseries where eggs are deposited.

Since their nest tunnels are limited in size they rarely do serious structural damage. Though they burrow into wood carpenter bees don t eat wood like termites do. Carpenter bees do not eat wood but cause damage to structures by drilling circular holes to create tunnels inside wood. It s not your fault neither the bees for choosing your wooden furniture as their shelter.

If you are planning to build any other wooden furniture use complex structure woods rather than the soft ones like oak ash cherry wood and maple. Do they sting people. The female is capable of stinging but seldom does so unless she is provoked or handled. The males do not sting but they usually make property owners mistakenly interpret protecting their territory for aggression and the possibility of stinging.