Bumble Bee vs. a Carpenter Bee
Bumble Bee and Carpenter bees have a lot of the same characteristics but they also have many differences. The carpenter bee actually lives in wood. That’s where they actually got their name; they are also known as a wood bee. The female bees bore a hole into the wood to make their nests and lay their larva.
These bees can take 4 to 6 weeks to hatch. These nests can be between 8 inches to 10 feet. The carpenter’s abdomen is a shiny black and the upper body near the head is black and yellow and also fuzzy. Female carpenter bees have a black head; they rarely sting unless they are handled.
A Male has a yellow head and they are very territorial. They will often get aggressive and sting when they feel someone is getting to close. Any kind of aerosol can be used as a knock down. This will not harm the bees but will simply make the bee either go to the ground or get back to their nest.
If needed to be controlled because of a nest in the yard, make sure you use a controlling substance and get them at dusk when they are resting. This is a safe way so you won’t be stung.
A bumble bee however makes their nests out of the ground such as a mouse hole or a lump of grass clippings. These bees make honey in small quantities and all in different places. These bees have small colonies of a couple hundred bees compared to the carpenter bee that can have up to a few thousand bees in a colony.
When a queen bee lays the larva, it takes about 7 days till they can spin their cocoon. Then after about 12 days of being in the cocoon when they hatch from the cocoon, they can become a worker bee. A Working bumble bee goes around and pollinates flowers and plants. Even though there are a small amount of flowers that need their help of pollination.
A bumble bee is not very defective. They only sting when they have to and a male can only sting once before they die and a female can actually sting multiple times. Though they rarely sting, they are usually doing their job as a bee and making their honey and pollinating the flowers.
The two bees don’t have much in common other then the fact that they look similar. Be careful that you don’t mix the two bees up because the one is more aggressive than the other.
