I have some bumble bee sized critters boring holes in the cedar posts of a palapa in my back yard. Assume Carpenter bees? Is it anything to be worried about and if so how do you get rid of them?

They are territorial little suckers - there are several of them and they have some serious mid air dogfights.....

They won't bother you, but will buzz the tower. The one flying around is the "gaurd" bee, while the other is busy drilling.

I usually get the hose and fill the hole with water and wait. Once the bee or bees comes out, I fill the hole.

https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef611

this topic seems boring.

There is a residual pesticide you can spray on the wood to get rid of em... Don't know the name of it though.

Aren't these sweat bees?

Carpenter bees look pretty much just like bumble bees. Large black and yellow bees, much bigger than a honey bee and WAY bigger than sweat bees.

You have some ****oo wasps that are wood boring, but sweat bees typically aren't wood boring.

We had some in our backyard when I was a kid. If you have a tennis racket handy, there is the potential for some pest ridding entertainment. I swatted these suckers to the cheap seats.

Good guys - heavy pollinators. My understanding is that they don't sting like colonizing bumblebees.

B-1 83 said:

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Good guys - heavy pollinators. My understanding is that they don't sting like colonizing bumblebees.

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Have heard that too. No interest in testing the hypothesis.

We get a good crop of them each year. They get into the cedar facia board where there are gaps in the gutter.

Knock on wood, but they have never messed with any of us coming and goin around the house.

They will eventually do some major damage to whatever wood they're infesting, by as others have said, I've never had one sting me.

EDIT: to say, it always amazes me how perfect of a hole they make in the wood.

OnlyForNow said:

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There is a residual pesticide you can spray on the wood to get rid of em... Don't know the name of it though.

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Probably thinking of something like DeltaDust.

https://www.amazon.com/Delta-Dust-Multi-Control-Insecticide/dp/B002Y6B4A8

rsmithtesiusa said:

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They are territorial little suckers - there are several of them and they have some serious mid air dogfights.....

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Cut and pasted from the google machine.

Quote:

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The male bee is unable to sting. It is the male carpenter bee, which is most often noticed. They hover in the vicinity of the nest and will dart after any other flying insect that ventures into their territory. A common behavior of the males is to approach people if they move quickly or wave a hand in the air.

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Yeah, they hover and scare the heck out of you. I didn't know that the one hovering is unable to sting..... good to know.

Bees are freaking amazing.

Yeah, the male(s) would be very aggressive and charge me when I would be out playing bball in the drive-way. Once I learned they didn't sting, that is when the tennis racket idea came into play. Admittedly, I wasn't 100% sure my dad wasn't playing a cruel trick on me when he told me the ones charging me couldn't sting, but I guess I was confident enough in the info to turn the drive-way into a 2-sport activity center

Whenever I am working on an old fence on my place..... it was made way back when they cut fence posts out of mesquite limbs (and ashe juniper)....... I run across these a lot. The old posts are always hollow. They are like a piece of pipe made out of wood. And they almost always have carpenter bees.

rsmithtesiusa said:

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I have some bumble bee sized critters boring holes in the cedar posts of a palapa in my back yard. Assume Carpenter bees? Is it anything to be worried about and if so how do you get rid of them?

They are territorial little suckers - there are several of them and they have some serious mid air dogfights.....

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(I'm a beekeeper, so I know a little more than the average person about these)

Yes, these are carpenter bees. The ones flying around and being agressive are the drones and do NOT have a stinger. The female has a stinger, but pretty much stays in that little perfectly made hole in your cedar posts.

Other than the holes, they do not cause problems. They are good pollinators for plants & crops. The time to get rid of them is BEFORE they bore holes in the wood (ie. winter).

I've found them in my smoker wood pile several times. The first couple of times it was certainly puzzling as to why my logs were buzzing. Their defense mechanisms is to stick their but out of the end of the bore hole and buzz like crazy.

I caught one in a hole on my back porch a few years ago and promptly slapped a piece of duct tape over the hole. A couple of mins later there were 6 or 7 more bees swarming around the duct tape so I split. Came back later to find a hole bored through the tape... not sure if he bored out or they bored in.

I do not think they will harm you, but as mentioned by OnlyForNow, you can use some pesticide to get rid of them. My friend was also having this problem and she had a small baby so she did not use any pesticide because they contain poisons so she called the professional CT Pest Exterminators to inspect the home and exterminate the pests out of her home. You can also look for some professionals in your area or can also try pesticide spray.

Thanks all. Good to know they are pollinators - think I will let them be for the time being. I try to avoid the "kill everything" instinct. Quit trimming my palm trees when I figured out that the bats were living under the dead palm branches.
I guess at some point they could do some damage. When could I close off the holes without killing them all ? Just make them go somewhere else next season?

Depending on where and what they boring into, they can and will cause a lot of damage. As someone else said, if there is a lot of then they can hollow out wood pretty quickly.