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Most people think of bees as insects with a yellow color and black stripes. But there are other varieties: black individuals. Carpenter bees are found in the wild, taming is not yet possible. In total, there are more than 700 varieties of carpenter bees, depending on the distribution area: American, German, African, Sicilian, European, Central .
Carpenter bee: description with photo
The common carpenter bee has a black body and purple wings. It got its unusual name because of the love to settle in attics, trees, wooden poles. Insects do not form large families, do not differ in aggressive behavior towards humans. Large hairy legs allow the insect to bring a large amount of pollen.
What does a carpenter bee look like
Appearance allows you to often confuse a variety of bees with a fly, a bumblebee. This is a large black bee with a dense rounded body. Females are larger than males, body size is 2-3 cm. In the head area, the color has a bluish or purple tint. The carpenter has purple wings with blue veins. The body, legs of the insect are covered with a large number of hairs. Pre-wetting them, the carpenter bee is able to collect a large amount of pollen and process it into nectar. Nectar feeds on the offspring of a wood-boring carpenter.
Only female carpenter bees have a stinger. Tree drones cannot sting. After a bite, the woodworm loses its sting and dies.
Distribution area
The distribution range of carpenter bees is quite wide. The black bee, as in the photo, can be found in Central, Western Europe, Transcaucasia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Mongolia.
On the territory of Ukraine, the carpenter bee is listed in the Red Book. In Our Country, carpenter bees are found in the Urals, the North Caucasus, Stavropol, Krasnodar, Moscow region.
What do tree bees eat?
The tree bee feeds on the nectar of more than 60 flowering plants. These are not only herbaceous plants, red clover, but also trees and shrubs. Carpenter bees are especially fond of white, yellow acacia.
Carpenter bees soak pollen with saliva, nectar. Microbes in saliva activate the fermentation process. The result is bee bread or bee bread.
Life cycle features of reproduction of the carpenter bee
The black tree carpenter bee is a loner and does not live in a family. The female creates a separate house, a separate offspring. For nesting, the bee breaks through a tunnel in dead wood. To do this, the carpenter bee uses powerful chewing jaws.
During the breeding season, drones fly around their site, trying to drive away possible rivals. To protect the area, males choose hills to make it more convenient to patrol the territory. During this period, females begin to fly higher in order to meet the long-awaited cavalier faster.
A nutrient mass of nectar and pollen is placed at the bottom of a tunnel dug in wood. They lay eggs in it. The larva emerging from the egg will feed on these supplies until the stage of the adult carpenter bee. Directly above the egg, the female black tree bee builds a partition of small particles and sawdust glued together with saliva.
Each cell serves for its egg, a new cell is created on top, a whole multi-storey building is being built.
The carpenter bee keeps the nest until mid-autumn, and all this time she guards it. The carpenter bee then dies.
The larva turns into a pupa at the end of summer. The young black carpenter bees stay in their burrow during the winter and only emerge in the spring. It is then that you can see young black bees with blue wings. Black carpenter bees begin to create their own nests at the end of May.
Does the carpenter bee bite or not?
Carpenter bees rarely show aggression towards humans. If you do not try to destroy or interfere with it, then it is peaceful. When meeting with a person in the absence of danger, he calmly continues his way. If you tease and try to grab these insects, you can get a bite, which is quite painful. At the same time, the sting remains in the human body, as with the bite of an ordinary bee.
How dangerous is a carpenter bee sting
It is important to understand that the sting of a tree bee is not just painful, but rather poisonous. If a person is healthy and does not suffer from hypersensitivity, then a tumor forms at the site of the bite.
Carpenter bee venom has a depressing effect on the human nervous system. Therefore, often a side effect of the bite of such an insect is a nervous shock.
In order to avoid unpleasant consequences, it is recommended to immediately pull out the sting. Then the algorithm of actions is as follows:
- Pull out the sting, being careful not to crush it.
- Squeeze the poison out of the wound.
- Apply to the wound gauze from an aqueous solution of ammonia in a ratio of 1:5.
- Bandage the wound.
In the absence of ammonia, many experts advise applying salt to the wound. It must be mixed with water to the consistency of a thick slurry. It will turn out to reduce pain, relieve painful swelling, reduce an allergic reaction.
Another way of traditional medicine, which helps with the bite of a tree bee, is the milky juice of a dandelion. Remove the sting, thoroughly moisten the wound with juice.
How to deal with tree bees
The fight against tree bees is carried out by several available means. It is important at the same time not to destroy bees in large numbers, since tree insects are rare and are listed in the Red Book. But leaving them year after year on the site is not recommended, since insects are dangerous in large numbers to humans. Children are most often affected, insects pose the greatest danger to allergy sufferers.
The blue carpenter bee can become a real disaster if it settles in the logs of a house or in a barn. The most popular and easiest way is loud music. It will help if tree insects appear in the garden or on the site. It is enough to take the audio system with loud bass out into the street, after a while you can find a positive result. The main thing is that the neighbors do not mind.
How to get rid of the carpenter bee in the house
It will not work to get rid of the carpenter bee in the house with the help of loud music – there are too many inconveniences for the residents themselves. Therefore, other methods are used:
- boric acid or carbaryl – used to destroy active wasp nests;
- specialized powdered pesticides;
- trap for tree bees.
The trap is used not only in the house, but also on the site. Easy to make with your own hands.
How to kill a carpenter bee in a barn
In non-residential premises and on the site, carpenter bees are easily removed with special pesticides that eliminate active nests. If there are no such funds at hand, there are more affordable substances:
- carburetor cleaner – any motorist can find it in the garage, and bees will not die from spraying this substance, but will quickly leave their habitat;
- gasoline, diesel fuel – poured directly into the nests, and the action occurs almost immediately after the liquids enter the nests of the wood bee;
- mechanical action helps if there are few bees on the site, in which case they can be knocked down with a racket or net, and then crushed.
With the mechanical method of destruction, it is important to be careful so that the insect does not bite. There may be complications, especially if there is an allergic reaction. It is necessary to knock down a hung insect with one blow, then immediately crush it.
Conclusion
The carpenter bee is unlike the well-known bright yellow insect with black stripes. The carpenter bee is large and purple, leads a solitary lifestyle, uses old, rotten trees, boards, logs as housing. Can live next to a person. The behavior is not aggressive, but the bite can be dangerous. It is worth getting rid of such neighbors, but carefully – the tree insect is listed in the Red Book. Attempts to domesticate this species have failed.
