Is this flying insect eating your deck or Kentucky home? Here’s how to ward them off

If you’ve ever met a carpenter bee, you likely know them as intimidating insects that cover your deck or porch in sawdust and stare you down every spring.

Though they don’t pose as much of a risk to your property as termites do , they can riddle wooden surfaces around home with holes and make them resemble Swiss cheese. Not to mention, a full-on infestation is likely to invite another nuisance to your home: woodpeckers.

Here’s what to know about these industrious and fascinating bees, including a few practical tips to help you manage them, with insights from University of Kentucky entomologist Jonathan Larson.

What are carpenter bees?

Carpenter bees, also called wood bees, are unlike their bumblebee and honeybee cousins in that they don’t live in colonies with sophisticated social structures. While the males and females do pair up and nest together, they don’t do so for life.

Rather than hives, these solitary bees instead tunnel into wooden surfaces and structures to carve out galleries for their young, along with a shelter they can use to overwinter.

Carpenter bees prefer unpainted and weathered wood , of which Lexington has plenty being surrounded by horse farms.

“We get a lot of questions on carpenter bees every year,” Larson told the Herald-Leader in an interview. “We have a lot of fencing in this area.. Many people paint the fences black, but if that maintenance gets sort of lost over the years, those fences can be very attractive to [bees], as can the fence posts. And then of course, we have all these barns.”

Carpenter bees are particularly drawn to the softer varieties of wood, such as pine, cedar, redwood and cypress. An exposed wooden deck or balcony, even one that’s been treated with stain, can also make for good nesting habitat.

Once a fertilized female has selected a spot to settle down in, she begins chewing on the surface of the wood in a perfect circle, repeating the process until she’s burrowed in. Once inside, she’ll begin digging tunnels at right angles until there are multiple galleries. At the rate of about an inch a week, she can eventually excavate tunnels several feet long. Carpenter bees return to their nesting sites each year so long as they’re still available.

Apart from riddling the wood with unsightly holes, this activity also compromises its integrity and invites another nuisance, woodpeckers. The birds love to dig into the wood to pick out tasty morsels of bee larvae, which of course erodes it further.

Do carpenter bees sting?

While they may look intimidating — a large black bee similar in appearance to a bumblebee — carpenter bees don’t have especially painful stings.

The males act aggressive when they feel their mate’s nest is threatened, but they can’t actually sting you.

“They’re kind of these aggro dudes that fly up in your face, and they check you out. They kind of hover at eye level, but they have no stinger,” Larson said, adding the male will act tough to get intruders to back down. “They’re trying to say ‘Hey, what’s up? What’s up?’”

Female carpenter bees, however, are capable of stinging, though they’re highly unlikely to unless handled. That said, if she needs to sting, she can do so without worrying about dying. Like bumblebees, carpenter bees have straight-line stings they can reuse.

How do you get rid of carpenter bees?

There are several ways you either prevent or get rid of a carpenter bee problem if you have one:

• Use a carpenter bee insecticide. A dust-based insecticide works best because it lingers in the tunnels longer. You can find these products at hardware stores.

• Build a carpenter bee trap. You can make one from a simple wooden block fitted with a plastic water bottle or jar. The bees will check out the wood, fall into the bottle and won’t be able to climb back out again.

• Take a dowel rod, insert it into the bee tunnel and cut off the exposed end so that it’s flush with the wood. Seal it up with wood glue.

• Carpenter bees prefer unpainted wooden surfaces, so painting over a problem area could be a long-term solution.

Do you have a question about Kentucky’s critters for our service journalism team? Send us an email at ask@herald-leader.com or fill out our Know Your Kentucky form.