I live in Milwaukee Wisconsin, right in the city, couple of miles west of Lake Michigan.

debra

Sorry for the delay in coming back. While there are several carpenter bee species, apparently the Eastern carpenter bee - Xylocopa virginica - is Wisconsin's big carpenter bee, and NJ's, and Vermont"s, and....

There is a smaller carpenter bee species, but it's teeny compared to Xylocopa, so I believe that you have the Eastern bee there. Here's a page from the US Forest Service about them: https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/carpenter_bees.shtml

They are very cool, and the females, while solitary bees, live near their mothers and sisters. We had one drill a hole in an old wooden banister that was laying on the porch, and we watched the pile of sawdust grow and saw her go in and out of the hole as she went about her work. FWIW, the males don't sting at all and the females almost never sting;; they will dive-bomb you if you get near their nest, but not sting.

Soooooo interesting! But, what does FWIW stand for? I have had several types of bees in the garden this year........this one I had never seen before and I was so intrigued by the fact that it was on the outside off the flower rather than in it. I hope this doesn’t mean there’s a nest near——like on my house! Thanks for all your info and the link.

debra

FWIW stands for “For What It’s Worth.”

duh!!! 😳

Just to allay your fears - most native bees, including this one, do not make a nest like hornets do, or congregate in large numbers, like honeybees. The carpenter bee may be living near your, in an old log or the like, but it's just her and her eggs - no swarm. So you can just enjoy watching them.

We had a lot of bees in our garden this year and we were worried that the children were going to be stung. So I feel your pain! I did a reasonable amount of web searching to try and identify the type of bees we had around our home and I was astonished by the number of species and how some of these bees actually live. We finally identified two species Minor Bees and Carpenter bees from a few articles we found on the website The Yard and Garden.

Many of them a solitary and burrow in the ground (minor bees) and then there are the carpenter bees that seem to hollow out sections of wood and live within the hole.

Based on your image that's a carpenter bee, see here https://theyardandgarden.com/do-carpenter-bees-sting/ they give you some advice on how to identify them, whether they are a risk, and how to remove them or just keep them away from your property.

tbh during the time it took for us to learn about them, we actually became quite fond of them and appreciated how beneficial they are

Thanks Ben and lisanti, I am late with a response to you, sorry. I am happy to receive the information. I am happy to have bees, dislike hornets and wasps. I am sure they are pollinators,but I want them to do it elsewhere...........lol.......lol

debra