Talk:Carpenter bee

Temperature Conditions
I've noticed the Carpenter Bee's only come out to work under very specific conditions. Typically warmer weather. Today it is 68 outside. They're not out. What is the minimum temperature for a Carpenter bee to work?

--Temp from someone looking at one-- 69 degrees In Central West Florida... One here giving me concern... I am a tad startled by their size... She's just pollinating... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.254.165.76 (talk) 16:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Only females have stingers, but still won't sting, unless you disturb them in some way. Sophia R. Snipes (talk) 18:31, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Black bees in my home
I was happy that what I thought were black bees had made themselves a home near the entrance of my own new home. I only found out the other day they may be significantly damaging my home. Now I think I'd better get rid of them but I am chemically sensative and need a solution that won't poison me (my house is unpainted because even paint makes me ill, at least, any paint I've ever come across in this country). Anyone knowledgeable about this?
 * Note that this is intended to be a discussion about the article. Therefore, I am twisting your question into a request to add a section on 'preventing carpenter bee infestations' in the article.  I will add what I know and hopefully it will be added to later. Kainaw 00:38, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

==> INFESTATION / EMIGRATION / ETC The article states, "distributed worldwide", however I have just noticed them in the past 7 years or so. Also, every year, we seem to get more & more carpenter bees in our yard. I've done no research on this. Has there been any done to determine if the number / concentration / location of these is changing year-to-year? Or is it just my awareness that's changing? (feel free to edit. I did not know how to add a section). [Menier]

They are my pets
They dug a few holes into my house about seven to ten years ago. I have found them to be more entertaining than destructive. All of their entrances are exposed to the open air and were made in the outermost wood on the house. No structural damage has been produced because the carpenter bees only gnaw holes into the outermost wood on the house. The damage that has occurred is essentially harmless. Three or four pieces of wood have holes in them. Carpenter bees are shy creatures. I treat them kindly, like carefree pets, by ignoring them. They were less visible in 2005, for some reason. TooPotato 19:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I will have to re-read the article, but I believe it states the benefits of carpenter bees and that some people attempt to attract them. If not, I will work it in.  For me, the bees made a nest in my window frame and were starting to poke through into my bedroom.  They can be loud too - I spent a long time wondering what the crunching noise in my window was.  If they stayed on the outer trim of the house, it is fine.  Coming into my bedroom is not. --Kainaw (talk) 20:15, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * They are very destructive pests IMHO... I also have found them to be far more social than the article suggests.... In one 21 inch section of 4X4 Pine the other day I decided to cut it apart to examine the damage and see the population that inhabited it. I found 27 mature bees in this small section, with 2 input holes. The wood was bored though out from end to end. The two input holes did not connect, separate colonies and I am sure they can do a sonar sound to tell when they are coming close to another tunnel and the end of the wood (so they don't make more holes/entrances than necessary.

Signed: Wiki is Liberal

Could an expert comment?
From the article:

The bees appear to be equipped by nature with the ability to employ sunlight to generate the energy that permits them to keep awing for hours on end. Their abdomens contain a small amount of a liquid substance.

Many of the young are small and short-lived, persisting for only one summer. Females over-winter in the nest, called a hibernaculum. Males may overwinter in a burrow in the ground.

Why is the caption for the top two pics of the bees "robbing" nectar? Is this a proper term? I thought they collect nectar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aximill (talk • contribs) 14:35, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Species
Why isn't there a species list? Circeus 17:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Because there are over 350 species in 31 subgenera. That would be a ridiculously huge page. I'll update the taxbox to indicate this.

Defense
Do Carpenter Bees have any defense mechanisms that could be harmful to humans? Im glad everyone else sees them as freindly pets, I find them threatening, due to their size, bold colors and loud buzz. They often are not afraid to buzz very close to humans. So whats the verdict, can a carpenter bee sting or bite you? Also, I have heard myths that it depends on the bee gender, can you clear this up?


 * If you go back to a version from June, it states that males cannot sting. Someone removed that.  Why?  If nobody can come up with a reason for removing it, I'll put it back in. --Kainaw (talk) 14:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I suppose it was removed because it's common to all hymenoptera, since the stinger is a modified ovipositor. It is really not a remarkable characteristic of carpenter bees. Anyway, to answer the first question... yes they can sting, and more than once unlike honey bees, but they really aren't aggressive and you would have to seriously threaten them without any means of escaping to be stung. &rarr; SeeSchlo&szlig; 11:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Image of a tired bee
SgtVelocicaptor 17:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

This bee appears to be resting.


 * But it is not a carpenter bee, it is a bumblebee. Dyanega 06:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought that bumblebees were rare. Thanks for the info.SgtVelocicaptor 16:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

That bee in the picture is a carpenter bee, not a bumblebee, Dyanega. Sophia R. Snipes (talk) 14:37, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Drilling mechanism
Can someone explain the mechanics of how they are able to drill into boards made of fairly hard woods like pine. I assume it's some sort of sharp cowl which vibrates acting over a fairly long period of time, but it seems like something of a tough feat. Would this be a good way to distinguish Carpenters from other sorts of bees or is it visually pretty minor? Thank you --Jolomo (talk) 04:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * They open their jaws, press the tips into the wood, and buzz while scraping. They don't "drill" per se, and don't make their nests in very hard wood. A great many different kinds of bees make nests in wood and their jaws are not so very different from ordinary bees; the most common modification is extra "teeth" either along the edge, or on the back side of the mandible. Not the most visible of characteristics, but boring into soft wood is not really a difficult task when you're as small as an insect - there are tens of thousands of tiny beetles and other insects that have no problem tunneling into wood. Just take a plastic knife some time and try to cut a groove into some soft wood - you'll find that you can make good progress in very little time. Dyanega (talk) 16:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

An observed benefit of having them as pets or having them around
I was like TooPatato these wonderful bee s became pets once I educated myself about their behavior it has been 5 years now and they live on my back porch ranging from 4 to 8 a year, the male bee is fascinating and is fascinated to constantly inspect what you are doing. I once planted some corn not to far from the porch and one male bee after another came out to see what I was hoeing, I think it was the vibrating of working the hoe that got their attention. I do not recall once being hit by one and not even a ounce of aggression, if anything it is like a dance the male bee will sometimes size you up, buzz low then buzz high moving vertically then flying off.

My main point of observation and a benefit of having them around:

I have no wasps in my backyard, around the house, and in my work shed in back...none. Not a hornet or a mud dapper. I have observed a few wasps over the years they will fly in and fly out and even inspect some of the Carpenter Bee holes but then be gone. Then one day I saw something a Carpenter bee like a Kamikaze missile knocking a hornet to the ground, the hornet got back up and flew then the bee, I think the male bee buzzed then dove with velocity and intercepted the wasp with force like a hard hit on a football field or a missile intercept and again the wasp hurdled towards the ground, it regained its composure and regained flight and flew off albeit haphazardly. I have seen fellow Carpenter Bees duel in the skys and maybe that is territorial and a few times and the end of an evening I will find a dead Carpenter on the back porch during some of those battles. I thought I would just add this observation, it seems to use its size and brute force of interception to ward of predators and compete for territory. If anyone else can verify this behavior please let me know.--Aslanspal (talk) 15:36, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

they have no stinger —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.207.56.142 (talk • contribs)


 * Read the article. It mentions stingers - and states that females do have stingers. --  k a i n a w &trade; 15:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Aslanspal, Carpenter Bees are very territorial, though they never attack humans, unless a female is disturbed while its eating, only the females have stingers, and males are completely harmless. I've only been stung once, when I was picking honey suckles, and shook the branch a female was on. Sophia R. Snipes (talk) 18:28, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Does anyone know the exact largest size a carpenter bee can grow to be? Sophia R. Snipes (talk) 14:39, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Wood bees
For those who cannot accept the notion of these creatures being colloquially called wood bees without some laundry list of links try:


 * http://www.e-bug.net/bug/bee/woodbees.shtml
 * http://www.bugspray.com/article/carpenterbees.html
 * http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-CYKX199206001.htm
 * http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/esa/jee/1926/00000019/00000001/art00035
 * Schneck says (1891) our carpenter or wood bee (X. virginica) slits the lower end of red clover corolla tubes, followed by honey bees getting nectar there.

--Belg4mit (talk) 03:05, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * So, let's recap the above links: first is some pest company that shows a drawing of a bumblebee, the second lacks the term "wood bee" altogether, the third is a translation from Chinese (thus not an actual English term), the fourth is from 1926, and the last is from 1891. I've been studying bees for 30 years, and published research papers on carpenter bees, and have never heard the term "wood bee" used once in all those years, and those links you give aren't convincing evidence that there is a significant number of people who use the term - at least not in the last 80 years. WP policy does indeed allow editors to remove things that are followed by a vanishingly small minority, and - frankly - none of those links are a reliable source to indicate that the term "wood bee" has been in use since 1926. "Imagining" that there are people other than yourself that call them wood bees is a type of "original research". It's simple: find a research paper published in, say, the last 50 years, that indicates that carpenter bees are referred to colloquially, in English, as "wood bees". Australia, the UK, wherever - as long as native English-speaking people use the term and someone has documented its use. If you can't verify it, then you really, honestly, should not be pushing to include it. Dyanega (talk) 05:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * IMHO you are wrong, but a debate of two people is no debate. There is no harm in the inclusion of more, non-trivia information. I would like to point out though, that this sort of blindered and inflexible "enforcement" of "rules" is very off-putting and dissuades many contributors. --Belg4mit (talk) 15:40, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It is very difficult to prove a negative; I suppose that if you go around the world you will find someone somewhere that uses practically any name for practically any creature. I don't know, and am not inclined to follow up on, the history of this debate, but I am an entomologist from another anglophone country, and I have never heard of "wood bees" either. "Holzbienen" in German OK, and possibly in other languages, but it does not follow that it is a useful or accepted term in English, and even in Afrikaans the word is "houtkapperby", not "houtby". Now, there are millions of terms one could coin for any living thing, some more charming than others, but one should encourage the most standard, and accordingly the most useful terms, rather than the most bewildering variety. We do not forbid their usage, but we are not compelled to encourage confusion or obscurity. So, since "wood bee" is in no way obviously superior to "carpenter bee", and certainly more obscure, I support omission of the word from the English article.JonRichfield (talk) 09:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree, I live in a place where carpenter bees are very common, and have never once heard the term wood bees used in place of carpenter bees. Sophia R. Snipes (talk) 18:37, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I came on here looking for information on "wood bees," but only find carpenter bees that are apparently real bees. What we call wood bees look like flies with black & yellow coloring mimicking a bee, & they burrow into wood. They don't sound like bees when flying, only when borrowing do they create such a droning sound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.32.5.120 (talk) 18:26, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Spam spam spam!
I suspect that I am not using the resources properly, so anyone willing to correct me would be welcome. As you can see by consulting the article history, I have just removed a few of the External links that were egregious, unqualified spam. They were uninformative apart from advertising particular companies for arguable consumer services. There still is at least one entry that I am inclined to remove, but I invite other members to have a look and react according to personal insights before I do so. JonRichfield (talk) 09:59, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Would like to see some external non-spammy external resources on how to remove the nests. justinnerd 09:54 July 2011 MT —Preceding undated comment added 15:54, 8 July 2011 (UTC).

There seems to be a difficulty there because certain elements among the WP authorities apparently frown on "how-to" articles in encyclopedias. That seems like a nutty idea, but... Also, I'm from a country where carpenter bees are common, but not a problem, so I can't help much; in fact I am very fond of carpenter bees, fwiw. However, in case you are having problems, both the article Eastern carpenter bee and Carpenter bee include links to carpenter bee control, eg If that doesn't help enough, check out google; there are thousands of ads there for CB control. Good luck! (To you and to the bees!) JonRichfield (talk) 18:40, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * OSU Agricultural Extension Fact Sheet - HYG-2074-06
 * Carpenter Bees - Penn State Entomology Department Fact Sheet
 * University of Kentucky Entomology: Carpenter Bees

Comments on the article
I need to make a few comments on the article.

1. I see images for Xylocopa violacea and Xylocopa micans. If this page is about carpenter bees, then the scientific classification should show only the genus and not one of the species. It shows an image of one of the species and the classification of another - this is inconsistent and it should be fixed.

2. The description of the carpenter bee needs to be consolidate in a section that could be labeled "Description". I see 3 instances of roughly the same description inside the "Characteristics" section.

3. It is not clear what "obligate pollinators" means. There should be an explanation.

4. "The tunnel functions as a nursery for brood and storage for the pollen/nectar upon which the brood subsists."

The sentence does not sound right - I think "The" should be "They". Please fix as necessary.

5. "Apart from outright predators, parasitoidal species of flies lay eggs in the entrance to the bee’s nest and the fly maggots live off the bee larvae."

This sentence is unclear and it needs to be improved.


 * ICE77 (talk) 06:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)


 * 1. It does not list only one species, it lists the type species. If you don't know what a type species is, click on the link for an explanation. That's why the link is there.


 * 2. The reason the characteristics section seems redundant is that several editors independently added their own comments without reading what others had already written, some of them incorrect. I can fix this.


 * 3. I can fix this easily enough.


 * 4. It's exactly correct as is, I have no idea why you think this is wrong.


 * 5. I don't see what it is about this sentence you think is unclear. Parasitoids eat bee larvae, but they are not considered predators.

Dyanega (talk) 22:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

1. Under "Genus: Xylocopa" I see "Xylocopa violacea" which is 1 of 500 species under the genus Xylocopa. This article is about Carpenter bees in general so it should not list a single species. At most, there can be a link under the genus that says "species" that links to the section "Species" (below in the same article). This is what I see for honey bees and bumblebees articles. I read the definition of type species and it doesn't make any sense to me. Xylocopa violacea is still 1 species in Xylocopa which has 500 species.

ICE77 (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Every genus, whether it contains one species or 3,000, has only a single "type species" which is the "anchor" for the definition of the genus. Most taxoboxes do not list the type species, this one does. This page already gives a list of all the species, as well, so there is no confusion as to how large the genus is. Dyanega (talk) 21:39, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Some info not in article
First, how long do they live?

Second, do they 'stay' in their nests permanently or do they migrate?

Third, are any varieties colored all yellow or orange or a yellow-orange?

I ask these because I have a piece of ornamental wood that's been hanging in my outdoor entryway for about 46 years that has a round hole in its front that a carpenter bee 'did' about 44 years ago and the only time that it's obviously in use is during the summertime here in Phoenix, AZ. (And, yes, this is an annual occurrence/tradition which is why I posed the "migration" query.)

As far as I can tell, only one bee at a time 'lives' there.

However, there have been several years in which an all yellow/orange/yellow-orange carpenter-bee-looking insect cohabitated - - - in other words, both a black carpenter bee and this 'colored' one were seen using the entrance hole (sometimes one waiting right next to the hole for the other to move out of the way), flying around the wood at the same time, and were not aggressive towards each other.

I do not remember ever being "buzzed" or 'dive-bombed' by the colored one like the black one has done.

Can anyone find answers/info and incorporate into the article? 2600:8800:784:8F00:C23F:D5FF:FEC4:D51D (talk) 13:16, 12 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The information you want pertains only to the species in your yard, which is Xylocopa varipuncta - the answers are different for each species of carpenter bee, of which there are hundreds worldwide. Dyanega (talk) 16:15, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Carpenter bees
Are carpenter bees seen in Kerala 2405:201:F013:1A0:E90D:837E:257B:E692 (talk) 08:20, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There are more than a dozen different species of Xylocopa in Kerala. There is a link, in the text of the article, to a published checklist of Indian species. Dyanega (talk) 17:13, 10 December 2021 (UTC)