Sometimes, it’s not the danger pests pose to you that’s the real problem. Sometimes, the danger they pose to your property can be far more serious. Carpenter bees highlight this problem especially, proving why an infestation on your property is not to be taken lightly. Learning how you can spot the signs and prevent populations from moving in can help you protect your property.
What Are Carpenter Bees?
Carpenter bees are a unique type of bee. Rather than build their nests out of pulpy foliage or wax, carpenter bees instead bore into wooden items, forming tunnels in the wood that they use to house their eggs. While other insects do this, like termites and carpenter ants, carpenter bees are the only pollinators that behave this way. They eat pollen just like other bees, but their wood-boring is unique. They are often mistaken for bumblebees, so it can be important to spot the following traits:
- Furriness: Unlike bumblebees, which are the furriest bees out there, carpenter bees are only furry on their rears. Directly behind their wings, they lack these tiny hairs and appear more smooth.
- Color: While carpenter ants are striped with yellow and black, like other bees, their bald parts are black and often shiny. In this way, they look more like a cross between a bee and a fly than a traditional bumblebee.
- Wings: Bumblebees are larger and heavier than any other bee species, so they need larger and broader wings to lift them. Carpenter ant wings are narrower and smaller.
What Problems Do They Cause?
More important than spotting minute traits that differentiate certain bees from others, the more likely way that property owners identify carpenter bees is based on the signs that their behavior produces. All of the following are signs of carpenter bee damage:
- Holes: Carpenter bees bore straight into woods from the surface, meaning their damage isn’t as hidden below ground as other wood-boring pests. If you spot small holes in the wood around your property, it may be a sign of carpenter bees.
- Frass: The other byproduct of wood-boring insects is the fine sawdust they leave behind. We call this “frass,” and spotting it around your property is another sign of wood damage.
- Structural damage: While they aren’t as ravenous as termites, since they don’t actually eat the wood they bore through, carpenter bees can still cause similar structural damage.
Carpenter Bee Prevention Tips & Tricks
In truth, if you wait until you spot those signs before you worry about carpenter bees, it will be too late to avoid them. That’s why, as in all things, early prevention is better than the late reaction. Here are steps you can take around your property to reduce your risk of carpenter bee populations:
- Landscaping: The planning of your yard is a key piece of pest prevention. How overgrown are your trees and bushes? How close are they to wooden structures on your property? These are key factors in how attractive your property is to a wood-boring pest.
- Moisture control: Just as pests are attracted to moisture for the sustenance it provides, water can also be a damaging factor that opens up new access points for pests around your property.
- Trash storage: Soiled trash or food waste gives off aromas that foraging pests are attracted to. That means you need to make sure your trash isn’t left lying around or in open bins.
Effective Removal Comes From Pros
Carpenter bees are a perfect example of why pest experts are so necessary to accurately identify and eliminate a problem. To untrained eyes, carpenter bees can look like other harmless pollinators. Property owners are more likely to notice the worse damage that has been caused little by little while the problem went unanswered. That’s why you should turn to pest professionals to inspect your property, even if you don’t yet suspect that pests are there. That’s the only way you can fully rest easy that your property isn’t falling victim to potentially destructive pests. At American Pest Solutions, we can get started on a thorough inspection of your property, looking for signs of pests or factors that attract them. We’ll not only provide you with solutions to remove existing problems, we’ll work with you to prevent future infestations, too.
Don’t let your property suffer wood damage from carpenter bees or other pests, contact American Pest Solutions today to get started on total protection.