-
A bumblebee post (carpenter bee??)
- May 30, 2009 at 10:18 AM
- By
- Comments (11) Total Views (569) Everyone can see this journal post.
This morning I found a huge bee dead on the floor in the baby's room. We have been having a problem with various bees in the house lately. We don't know how they are getting in, but suspect it has something to do with us removing all the interior trim in the whole house (part of our remodeling project). Of course, I used this as a teaching opportunity for my five-year old! Make sure you read my edit at the bottom of this post.
First, I scooped it up into a shallow bowl so we could prod at it with tweezers. Then I took her picture with it. Then I looked it up online, so we could talk about its parts, and what type of bee it is. Turns out, it's a bumble bee! I see these all the time outside, usually as they inspect the eaves of our house, or occasionally buzzing through the clover.
Picture from insectidentification
Above is a picture I found online, it shows them alot more clearly than the ones I took. They are pretty big (about the size of a nickel), fuzzy on the yeallow parts and hard and crunchy on the black parts. They do sting, but the stinger is not left in your body, so they can sting repeatedly. It's hard to find the stinger because they keep it tucked in the abdomen when not in use. I thought the long projection from his mouth was the stinger, but the website bumblebee.org says that is the tongue, and it's long to suck nector from flowers!
This gives me a great idea for the PTA's "Family Fun Night" at my daughter's kindergarden school in the fall. I have wanted to do a science table, but wasn't sure what I could do that would be interesting to the kids and parents. But now I know I want to make pictures and maybe have some specimens (dead and alive) of bugs and animals in our area. I am sure alot of the parents see these bugs all the time but can't identify them!
Do you see any bugs you can't identify? Would you like to be able to?
Edit to add - After Nannette commented, I decided to look a little deeper, and she may be right. It has taken some time for me to determine what kind of bee it is. Now I have it in a ziploc so I can move it around alot easier. See this picture below, I found online. My bee is big and wide like the bumblebee, but deniately does not have as much yellow on the abdomen. I now know from the University of Kentucky, the males that tend to harass us a little bit, can't sting! Lots more info here, from Ohio State University. Using this fact sheet, since my bee has the less hairy abdomen, I found it inside (and we have no window trim), I am now leaning towards carpenter bee.
Picture from KSU
Great Eye Nannette! I love it when I learn something from my readers, not just from my own studies to write these posts! Thank You!
Tonya
AKA sunmoonstars
Comments:
Heh, Nanette, that was the first thing I thought of when she mentioned that she didn't know how it got in the house, but suspected it had something to do with the remodeling along with them chicking out the eaves. We have several wood bees that like to drill holes in our banister as of late (and had a hornets nest in the mailbox!).
Apparently it takes more than a enthusiastic whack with a fly swatter to deter them. Thanks for reminding me to pick up some caulk today, that aught to fix their problem.
Cool, when I student taught at your daughters kindergarten school, their curriculum covered dinosaurs and birds for sure. Not sure what the fall covered. They also did a really cool play called the old oak tree!
I've been talking about bees with Eleanor lately, too. She suddenly developed a fear of them yesterday, and I feel that every bee we see is worth more than it's weight in gold now due to colony collapse disorder, so I want her to value them but still have a healthy respect for them. (Maybe you could write a journal giving us an update on colony collapse disorder, esp. since it's time to plant bee-friendly gardens.)
Our insect issue with Eleanor right now is that we need to teach her the difference between pest insects and useful insects, and how she should interact with them. I think that we've gone a little overboard making her think that all spiders are bad. This stems from the fact that we have a lot of black widows around our house. However, now she has no tolerance for even the smallest of spiders; she's not scared, but she wants them gone. We've moved ladybugs from our front bushes to the rosebushes in back with her to control aphids, which was a fun activity. They have a silkworm colony in her preschool right now.
Hey, do you guys know about The Great Sunflower Project?
21st mom - yes, I have heard of that but never participated. This year wee decided not to plant sunflowers though, because we have so much goig on with our house projects, and possible new landscaping. GREAT addition to this post though, thanks!!
nannette - GREAT POINT!!! So in hindsight, I am sure the ones we have seen around the house have been carpenter bees. We did find their perfectly round little holes burrowed in our front steps. They were temporary steps, so we never bothered to paint or otherwise protect them. I looked at a few more sites just now, and I think you may be right. I am going to edit the OP, since I cannot add pics here, but I wanted to share what I found. Thank you!! I hadn't thought of that!
I love bees..I'm not sure I could live without honey and we totally welcome them in the summer. My older twin is my bug guy. He will pick them up )bees, hornets, flys, fire ants, and study them regardless if they are stinging or biting him. He was stung 5 times once didnt budge. We soon found out he is allergic to ants and his hands will swell up to the size of a balloon..(he will keep studying them regardless lol) I now make sure I keep an antihistamine with me.
Many times we have had to get exterminators because they create hives in the walls. I used to work in property management and once an entire wall of the building was a bee hive. Just millions of bees. So put your ear up to the wall and listen for a hum. Be careful when replacing those steps.:)
Awesome...glad to have helped!
We lived in a house for about 9 years with them...and learned a great deal about their quirky characteristics...their quite hard to get rid of! Even after the exterminator....!!! My husband took to whacking them with bats each evening after work! Nice relaxation, huh? : )
They mate with the same bee for life, they come back to the place they were laid each year, they only come out when the temp gets a little warm..low 70's or higher, the males hover near the hole while the female stays inside with the larva, they don't sting but they do fly after you and dive bomb ya! And the coolest thing to see was them going after an insect and catching it in flight!
Great post! Bees fascinate me.
Crraaaaaaap.
Here in Washington, under the eaves of the houses are little metal-mesh covered holes to help ventilate the rafter area and prevent mold. We caught a fuzzy bumblebee (maybe a carpenter bee? I don't think so, though) investigating one of the holes... often. I'd just seen one, so I was only slightly concerned. However, yesterday I heard loud buzzing, looked up, and could see 4 or 5 all around that hole. There must be a hole in the metal mesh in that ONE place, letting them get in. My husband sprayed it really good with the hose, but I'm calling our property management tomorrow to have the landlord hire someone. I'd hate to kill them, but I can't have a hive/nest of bees less than 5 feet from my backdoor.
Any businesses RELOCATE bees? :)
Already a member? Click here to log in
When I clicked on journals, yours was the first on the list...so I clicked and read it as I am learning a lot about honey bees recently.....
When I read that your bees are "inspecting the eaves" of your house, I wanted to let you know that is a characteristic of Carpenter Bees, while looking almost identical to Bumble Bees, are not the same insect and Carpenter Bees actually eat the wood and burrow in it....at our previous residence, we needed an exterminator because of the large number of Carpenter Bees making residence in the eaves of our home!
And I think your "family fun night" idea is GREAT! : )
- Nanette77318
Message Friend Invite