The Noble Carpenter Bee

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We received a whopping 10.55 inches of rainfall in May. What this affords us is an extended planting period and soft, diggable soil. If you noticed any areas getting washed out or collecting standing water, you may have a prime candidate for a rain garden. By amending with compost and sand, you make the ground more water permeable. If you utilize native grasses, their deep roots can penetrate deeply to access groundwater during our dry summers and soak up water like a sponge during storms. For more resources on getting started, visit the Cumberland River Compact for information & get a free consultation for your own rain garden.

I want to give some love to an often maligned insect — the noble carpenter bee. This gentle giant, known for its “shiny hiney”, is the largest bee in North America, rivaled only in size by the bumblebee queen. While known for taking advantage of new construction, they seek out untreated, unpainted softwood to tunnel into for nests. I’ve heard of people doing terrible things to deter or kill these bees, and I strongly encourage you to learn to live alongside them.

Male carpenter bees, easily distinguished by the yellow spot between their eyes, cannot sting. Their female counterparts will only sting you if you attack them. If you want to prevent them from drilling into your new porch, treat the wood with citrus or almond oil. Unfortunately, these methods do not work for spaces they’ve already nested in. You can also provide them with optional quarters such as a south-facing bee hotel or a sacrificial piece of soft wood (preferably cedar or pine) to encourage their nesting elsewhere. Some even swear by hanging a decoy wasp nest.

While they may be a nuisance, these bees are valuable and necessary in crop production. Due to their size, they often cannot get inside of flowers. Instead they utilize sonication, also called buzz pollination, to vibrate the grains of pollen off of the anthers and on to their bodies. They’re also no strangers to a shortcut and have been known to cut a slit at the base of flowers to extract the nectar directly.

That’s it for this week, my friends. Tune into Gardening Inside Out every Saturday morning at 8 am. Follow us on Instagram for questions answered on the Know Down. Queue up the podcast for your next journey. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Happy Gardening,

Sara Bates