Did you know that bees see all colors except the color red?

 

There are about 20,000 different species of bees in the world. Bees live in colonies that contain the queen bee, the worker bee and the drone. The worker bee and the queen bee are both female, but only the queen bee can reproduce. All drones are male. Worker bees clean the hive, collecting pollen and nectar to feed the colony and they take care of the offspring. The drone’s only job is to mate with the queen. The queen’s only job is to lay eggs. 

 

Bees store their venom in a sac attached to their stinger and only female bees sting. That is because the stinger, called an ovipositor, is part of the female bee’s reproductive design. A queen bee uses her ovipositor to lay eggs as well as sting. Sterile females, also called worker bees, don’t lay eggs. They just use their ovipositors to sting.

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Carpenter Bees 

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Carpenter bees bore through soft woods to lay eggs and protect their larvae as they develop. Female carpenter bees will chew a tunnel into a piece of wood to build a nest gallery. The bits of wood she chews and deposits outside the nest are called "frass". The tunnel openings usually look about one or two inches deep, but they can be up to 10 feet long! These tunnels usually have several rooms where the bees hold their eggs and food.

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Carpenter bees do not pose a public health threat, but they can do cosmetic damage to the wood where they build their nests. Carpenter bees are beneficial because they pollinate plants that are ignored by Honeybees.

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Honey Bees

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Honeybees live in large "families" and are found all over the world. The honeybee is the only social Insect whose colony can survive many years. That is because they huddle together and eat honey to keep themselves alive during the winter months.  Honeybees pollinate more than 100 crops in the U.S.  Their wings flap 11,000 times per minute, which is why it sounds like they are "buzzing". Honeybees can only sting once, because their stingers are barbed and tear off when they try to get away.

 

Honeybee nests vary in size. They typically build their nests in tree crevices, but will occasionally build nests in attics or chimneys.

Because honeybee colonies can be extremely large and removal can be very messy, only a pest management professional or experienced beekeeper can safely remove a honeybee nest.

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Prevention:

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• Carpenter bees can drill into almost any wood, but prefer bare wood, so painting and staining wood can sometimes deter them.

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Need to get rid of bees? Call us at 1-800 BUGS to schedule a FREE bee inspection of your home or business.