How Long Can Carpenter Bee Live

They would need to not just work a lot of years but create a lot of tunnels before it would get seriously damaged.

How long can carpenter bee live. Woodpeckers also like to feed on carpenter bee larvae and will cause further damage by tearing into the wood to get at the nests. Each new generation is hatched in the late summer emerging from nests in August and September to grow and feed pollinating flowers as they go before settling in for the winter and hibernating. Carpenter bees dont sting unless provoked.

They are 14 inch to 1 inch long and have six legs and antennae. They are carpenter bees which get to be about an inch long but do not have the fuzzy yellow appearance of bumblebees. Instead of eradicating the shiny black wood-burrowing bees on our own back porch we watch them listen to them and otherwise enjoy them.

Carpenter bees are more prone to nesting in unfinished wood so a couple of coats of paint dissuaded new bees from moving in. They settle in to brood tunnels individually to overwinter and emerge in the spring to mate. Adult bees come out from their nests in March after a few warm days have occurred.

We usually have them pretty bad early in the warm season I live in San Jose CA. The short answer is dont. Most importantly carpenter bees dont live in colonies.

I usually blast the holes every coupla weeks or so. Normally the gallery will extend about four to six inches but with repeated use galleries have measured ten feet long. As NCSU points out it would not just take a lot of years but also a lot of carpenter bees before structural damage would become the case.

Survivors emerge in April and May to mate. Female eastern carpenter bees live for up to two years. The Carpenter bee is known as an excellent pollinator but can be a pest.