Carpenter Bee Removal and Damage Repair

Carpenter bees are stocky, heavy-looking bees that are also known as "wood bees" or "borer bees." All three common names refer to the fact that female carpenter bees drill holes in wood in which to lay their eggs. The holes are perfectly-round at the surface and look as if they were drilled using a carpenter's brace and bit. They start each hole on a face or edge of the wood, and then turn in the direction of the grain and extend the hole into a tunnel inside the wood that can range from a few inches to several feet in length.

The holes also contain a mixture of wax, nectar, and the bees bodily fluids that can ooze out of the holes and forms stains that are difficult to remove. The stains are most apparent when the holes are drilled in a vertical surface such as the siding of a house. When the holes are drilled underneath wood, such as in the underside of a porch railing, the wax and fluids fall to the ground, as does the sawdust while the holes are being drilled.

Once the bees have excavated the tunnel to a length of their liking, they start to lay eggs in it. They lay the eggs one at a time and supply each egg with some pollen and a bit of regurgitated nectar, then seal it with a bit of wax before laying the next egg. The eggs hatch, larvate, pupate, and emerge as adults in the reverse order in which they were laid: The eggs that were laid last and which are nearest to the hole hatch, larvate, pupate and emerge before the earlier eggs, who are further on down the tunnel.

Like most bees, carpenter bees are industrious pollinators. In fact, they're the primary pollinators of some plant species. They're also very peaceful bees. The males fly around very aggressively trying to scare you away from the nesting area, but it's all a show. The males completely lack stingers and couldn't hurt you if they tried. The females do have stingers and are capable of stinging, but they almost never do.

In fact, if it weren't for their annoying habit of drilling holes in our homes, decks, fences, and wooden furniture, most folks would be willing to ignore carpenter bees. If they limited their drilling to dead trees like they're supposed to, no one would consider them a nuisance at all. The problem is that to a carpenter bee, our homes and wooden possessions are just so many dead trees; and over time, they can cause considerable damage that is very unsightly and often very expensive to repair.

Carpenter Bee Exclusion

Carpenter bee control is one of the most challenging jobs that we do because in addition to treating carpenter bee nests and repairing the damage, our goal is to seal carpenter bees out of your home. In addition to treating the visible holes, we also seal or screen the house to prevent the bees from getting to the wood that you can't see, such as the unpainted sides of trim that face inward. Obviously, this is meticulous and painstaking work that requires special skills and specialized equipment. But we're not the sort who look for the easy way out.

Carpenter Bee Control Gallery

Here are some pictures of carpenter bee work we've done in Tennessee and elsewhere.

Please contact us to learn more about carpenter bee removal and exclusion in and around Chattanooga, Tennessee. We look forward to hearing from you.

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The Chattanooga, Tennessee office of Rid-A-Critter provides carpenter bee control and damage repair in the Chattanooga, Tennessee Metro Area, including the counties of Hamilton, Marion, and Sequatchie, Tennesee and the cities and towns of Collegedale, Dunlap, East Brainerd, East Ridge, Harrison, Jasper, Lakeview, Middle Valley, Red Bank, Signal Mountain, Soddy-Daisy, and their surrounding areas.

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