Big, black, oversized bees, bumble bees,. right? I usually see them with yellow stripes. Curious because last few days looking out the window, I see this big bumble bee buzzing around a stacked cord of oak. Same stack, and same end of stack. This bee didn't have yellow stripes but looked like a bumble bee. In the sunlight, it's wings looked purple, and stripes visible if the light hit right looked purple too. I went to see wht it did when it landed, it just crawled on a piece of wood and took off to buzzing again. I wonder what is attracting them, or is it just one, I don't know? Another interesting observation, a wasp sort of flies into the bumble bee as it buzzes the stack, much like blackbirds flying into and driving off hawks in their nesting area.
Might bee carpenter bees. They gnaw their way into wood. They can do a number on a deck or anything wooden.
Carpenter Bees have a large shiny black abdomen and females bore holes into untreated/unpainted wood to lay her eggs. They are slow and bumbling but solitary and do not defend a nest as they appear to be doing. Males cannot sting and females seldom do unless harassed. I do know they are major pollinators so I always leave them alone. I have smoked them out of decks (cigar) or plugged the hole after they leave for a sortie. Even a thin coat of varnish on bare wood seems to deter them.
Yep, googled carpenter bee, looks just like 'em. My stack is dead, but not rotten, and where I saw it land and crawl around looked a bit punky.
There are parasitic wasps that lay their eggs in other insects, but I don't know whether they can do it in flight.
An actual "bumble" bee will be yellow and black, also "fat", pretty much harmless, there just checking out places to forage. The "fat" hairy brown/black bees are the carpenter bees, for the most part useless and love to bore in wood as jr said. The bumble bee is a good insect for pollenating, the carpenter bee, do all you can do to deter them!
Sure must be nice to have bees out already. That normally signals the end of maple syrup season in our area. Sap hasn't run much yet.
I was splitting some Eastern Red Cedar today and 6 or 8 carpenter bees fell out of 1 round. It was in the 60's today but it wasn't warm enough for them to fly. I just brushed them off the beam. The next round I split was full of ants.
Temps have been warm all winter, into the 80's this week. I have burned less than a cord this year, burned 2, 2-1/2 cord last winter. We got a hard freeze for a week or two in December. Hard freeze here is several hours below 32, something you would probably laugh at.
We went several days at a clip without seeing double digit highs. Dipping below 32 for a few hours just means I need to put a sweater on to get the mail.
