Do Yellowjackets kill Carpenter bees? (spiders, tree, crape, insect)
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We've had a problem with carpenter bees for years at our log home and sprayed earlier this spring as always. Usually we have to respray in about 4-6 weeks but noticed this year several yellowjackets buzzing around and seeming to attack crawling carpenter bees on our patio and eating dead carpenter bees as well. We don't see any carpenter bees now yet a few yellowjackets are still canvassing the area where the other bees used to be. Have the yellowjackets become our "green" solution?
Yellowjackets are predatory wasps, they will kill and dismember any appropriate sized insect they can catch and overpower. The adults eat mostly sweet things, like nectar, but the larva are carnivorous, so the adults fly back to their nest with the meaty parts to feed to their young. It's very possible they could be killing and eating the carpenter bees.
Hestor is correct...
Wasps eat a wide range of invertebrates including spiders, caterpillars, ants, bees, and flies. It has also been suggested that wasps may prey on nestling birds. Wasps also collect honeydew. Honeydew is produced by a native scale insect. The insect inserts its mouth-parts into the trunk of the beech tree to siphon the sap. The excess sap, modified by the scale insect, forms a sugary droplet at the end of a waxy anal filament.
I happen to LIKE Carpenter Bees...just not in my house.
Gonna try making a bee box, some suggest they will take to supplied untreated, soft wood over painted house parts if given the option.
We named ours Alfred I, Alfred II, Alfred III...they follow me around outside like dogs. (Only the females sting. Males are amusing once you realize they won't attack.) No name for Mama in the millwork, though. Her home is about to go away...sorry, sister.
Last edited by 33458; 07-23-2008 at 03:43 PM..
Reason: I am dyslexic today.
Honey Bee different from Carpenter bee, though both are beneficial to the garden.
However, Carpenter Bees have a very bad habit...the females like to burrow in wood...should see the work they put in to getting there, too! I put some large moving boxes out for recycling and a female Carpenter erroneously decided she was going to dig through one of them...well - she couldn't - the cardboard had some kind of coating on it...and I told her as much (YES, my new neighbors think I'm NUTS!) and I even tried to offer her a chunk of wood on a stake...nope...she wanted that box, man! Crunch, crunch, scrape, scrape...She worked at it for a few hours before giving up. I felt for her. After all that, little bee brain musta had a headache, or TMJ, one.
Honeybee is the one in trouble. I resist pesticide in my garden if at all possible for that very reason.
Last edited by 33458; 07-23-2008 at 03:39 PM..
Reason: spell much?
I think the honeybees must adore you! Thanks for the info.
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