Carpenter bee

My name is Randi Eckel, and I'm the MPSNJ past president, board entomologist, native plant expert, and the owner and founder of Toadshade Wildflower Farm.

Today, I'm going to try to answer some questions about carpenter bees.

had a couple of questions come up asking about them in the last month or so, so I thought it was a good time for some carpenter bee education.

First of all, Lisa asked, I planted perennials around my back porch last year, and I noticed I have a lot of bees.

Yay! Then I realized they're drilling holes in my wooden porch roof.

I don't want to kill them because I am reading that carpenter bees are excellent pollinators, but there are more than 20 holes.

Do you have any ideas?" And then Allison from Kearney asked about them as well.

She said, every year they have had swarms of carpenter bees on the front porch and it was hard to walk into the house through the front door.

Last week, you had a guy that called in about would-be's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, carpenter bees.

Carpenter bees.

Right.

And he was talking about, you know, they were swarming his yard.

Of course, the oriental rugs are made with wool, most of them that you would buy.

I think there are some, you know, there are synthetic ones now, just like most carpeting is synthetic one for or the other.

At any rate, let's go back to talking about carpenter bees with, is it Jeff? Jim? Jim.

Mosquitoes, worst May through September.

Wasps and carpenter bees, same April to October window.

Rodents, which spike in fall and winter as they look for warmth.

And spiders, which are around all year but get more active indoors in the fall.

The longer it sits, the more rooms usually get involved.

Makes sense.

Let's touch on wasps and carpenter bees, too, since you said they share that April to October window with fire ants.

Yellow jackets nest in the ground or in wall voids.

How can we help you, Jim?

Well, I have a question about carpenter bees.

Now, Angie and I normally listen to you from our Wake Forest home, but today we're up in Virginia, not too far from the New River Valley, Rufus.

Oh, great.

and a house here in the mountains, and we've had a carpenter bee problem.

Now, I know this is a little bit off-season for carpenter bees, but this spring we had so many of them.

My bride, Angie, killed over 230 carpenter bees with a floss water in her hand last spring.

Wow.