Carpenter Bees

(We recently had a visit by a female Carpenter Bee to our patio in search of a place to lay her eggs.)

A week or so ago I noticed this huge bee that resembled a bumble bee buzzing around our patio. Our dog, Pinot Grigio, noticed the bee too and would at time go chasing after it. I didn't think too much about it except that I didn't actually like it buzzing around so close to me while sitting on the patio.

Then a few days later I noticed a small pile of sawdust by the leg of our antique Indian chest that we have outside on the patio. That is weird I thought. At first I just took the hose and washed the sawdust away thinking it had somehow fallen out from somewhere in the old dried chest. But then a day or so later, there was the pile again and this time I noticed that small specs of wood dust were coming out of a perfectly round 1/4 inch hole in one of the legs. That is when I put two and two together and thought, we've got a Carpenter Bee.

Sure enough it seems that the female Carpenter Bee is a solitary bee and looks for untreated or old wood in which to bore a deep hole for their nest and to store pollen for their newborn. And, although the holes usually aren't deep enough to cause lots of damage, I didn't want a nest in my furniture on the patio. So off to the hardware store to see what I could find to get rid of this persistent bee. They suggested ORTHO® Home Defense MAX® Wasp & Hornet Killer Foam Spray. So once I was sure the bee was boring away, I sprayed the foam into and along the hole and that seemed to do the trick. The bee did not come out and the sawdust stopped coming out of the hole. The next step was to take some Teak Oil and oil down the whole chest. Hopefully this will discourage the bees next year when they go looking for something to bore into.