July 5th, 2011
My last program at the Laurel Creek Outdoor Education Centre this June was Honey Bees for grade 4 students. We have four hives here that students get to visit. We put on veils and gloves and generally look pretty nerdy. There would be lots to blog about that.
A lot of parents wanted to know, “What are those big bumble bees hanging around my deck at home tunneling into the wood?”
Those are carpenter bees. Here’s a carpenter bee from Wikipedia.
The females are boring into the wood of your deck to lay eggs. It’s not a big colony living in your deck, it’s just a couple of chambers where a few eggs are laid. Each egg gets a blob of nectar and pollen stuffed in with it for the larva eat as it develops.
This carpenter bee is in the balcony at Laurel Creek. Every minute or so, a little puff of sawdust is kicked out of the hole.
The males hover about outside of the holes patrolling their territories. Males have white faces but no stingers. They will come in close to check you out, but can’t harm you. Carpenter bees really don’t do much structural damage to the wood, so your best bet might be to ignore/enjoy them. They will pollinate your garden flowers. Some people put up specially designed bee houses to attract solitary bees to their yards. Check it out:
