What Every South Carolina Resident Ought To Know About Carpenter Bees

Are you aware that there is a bug, fuzzy bee that can do a lot of damage to your South Carolina home? It's called a carpenter bee and, unlike a carpenter, it doesn't fix bookshelves or build new decks for people; it bores holes into the wood of homes. Let's take a look at a few things every South Carolina resident should know about carpenter bees.

How To Identify A Carpenter Bee

If you see a carpenter bee buzzing around your home, you may be tempted to think that it is a bumblebee. Carpenter bees and bumblebees have a similar appearance. They're both fuzzy looking, they're both black and yellow (depending on the species), and they're both large bees. But there is a physical characteristic you can look for that will help you tell the difference between a carpenter bee and a bumblebee. The abdomen of a carpenter bee looks hairless and is entirely black. This will make it look black from the middle of its body to the end of its body. Bumblebees are black and yellow all over. Some bumblebees have white hairs on the end of the abdomen. If you see a large bee in your yard and it has a shiny black abdomen, you're looking at a carpenter bee.

How To Detect Carpenter Bees

When carpenter bees attack the wood on your home, they do it in a sneaky way. They'll fly underneath wooden structures and fly upward and cling to the bottom. Once there, the bee will bore a hole upwards. This hole will be perfectly round and the tunnel it makes will go upwards for a few inches and take a ninety-degree angle to follow the grain of the wood. You may have to get a flashlight and crawl into some dark and dirty places around your home to find these holes. Hopefully, they'll be obvious and easy to see, such as on the lip of a railing on your deck railing.

The holes created by carpenter bees aren't always perfectly round. As a female bee bores her tunnel to establish a nest, she can accidentally breach the tunnel walls. This can create odd-shaped holes that can look like the dots and dashes of morse code. You might see this damage on deck railings, decking, and wood stairs.

If a carpenter bee finds an entry point, it can get into your home and bore holes you can't see. When they do this, you might be able to hear them. The chewing noises they make as they tunnel through wood can become noticeable if there are several bees.

How Bad Carpenter Bee Damage Can Be

A single bee won't do a lot of damage to your home. It will only make a tunnel that is about six or seven inches long. Several bees making tunnels this long can start to add up, but that's not the worst part. Carpenter bees use old tunnels and make them longer. If you had a carpenter bee infestation last year, those tunnels are going to be made larger this year. Over time, this can become a serious problem.

Damage to your home isn't the only threat carpenter bees present. Carpenter bee tunnels can weaken the integrity of structures. If a railing gives way or a stair snaps in half, it can cause an injury.

How To Control Carpenter Bees

When residents attempt to control carpenter bees, it often leads to undesired results. A carpenter bee that is trapped inside a tunnel can cause a lot of damage as it attempts to tunnel out another way. The best solution for carpenter bee control is to reach out to a licensed pest professional. If you're in our South Carolina service area, we'd be happy to help. Reach out to The Original Bugman Pest Elimination Inc. for immediate assistance.