This past weekend I was sitting out at a picnic table in the middle of an apartment complex, having a nice pleasant conversation with several friends. After a while we began to notice that a nearby tree seemed to be the nesting place of some sort of flying insect that none of us could identify.
At first they looked like extremely large bumblebees. Extremely large solid black bumblebees. Then we noted that instead of being “fuzzy”, they seemed to have a carapace. It was at that point that we all retreated indoors.
So does anybody know what these things might have been?
If you see some perfectly round 3/8 - 1/2 " holes in some untreated wood in the area, with sawdust underneath, that’s them. Their holes are so round they look like somebody drilled them.
The males are bluffing - they don’t have stings. The females can sting, but are very unagressive.
They’re pretty common, actually. There’s a couple species, and they range all over the US. I had a couple drilling holes in my screened in patio. They’re solitary, so they don’t generally do the damage carpenter ants or termites, which form large colonies, can do. Gas the bee, or wait for it to leave, and fill the hole with wood putty. They don’t generally touch painted wood, so you find them drilling into things like redwood decks and fencing.
From the links provided, I think it’s pretty clear that the bugs in question are carpenter bees. What really nails it is the mention of the fact that they bore perfectly round, 1/2 " diameter holes in wood – this perfectly describes the entrences to their nest.