The Africanized Bee

The Africanized bee is the same species as the European honey bee kept by beekeepers all over the United States. Introduced into Brazil from southern Africa, it is adapted to longer warm seasons than are northern honey bees. In 1957, it was accidentally released in Brazil during a science experiment. It began to move north and reached Mexico in the 1980s. It can now be found in the southwestern US. These bees react very quickly, attack in large numbers, and swarm for long periods of time, thus earning them the nickname "killer bees."

It is thought that this bee will advance as far into the northern temperate region as it has into the southern temperate region. If this is true, Africanized bees will be distributed north in a line that will reach from southern Pennsylvania, west to Seattle, Washington.

Africanized bees do not store as much honey to take them through the winter as honey bees do. They have smaller colonies and tend to swarm more often. Smaller swarms allow colony development in smaller cavities. In South and Central America, Africanized swarms settle in hollow trees like northern honey bees; they also colonize in rubber tires, crates and boxes, wall voids, abandoned vehicles and other protected places that abound in urban areas. Worker bees tend to mob intruders. The urbanized Africanized honey bee presents a new management challenge not only to beekeepers but to urban pest management technicians.

Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa)

Carpenter Bees are not social insects; they live only one year. The most common Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa virginica, is distributed throughout the eastern half of North America. This bee is a large insect with a hairy yellow thorax and a shiny black abdomen. Superficially, it resembles yellow and black female bumble bees, which are social and more closely related to honey bees. Western Carpenter bees are also large, shiny, sometimes metallic, and are shaped like bumble bees.

Carpenter bees bore in wood and make a long tunnel provisioned with pollen and eggs. They prefer to enter unpainted wood and commonly tunnel in redwood and unpainted deck timber. They will also go into painted wood especially if any type of start hole is present. New females reuse old tunnels year after year; they are also attracted to areas where other females are tunneling. Egg laying and tunnel provisioning occurs in the spring. Males hover around the tunnel entrance while the female provisions the nest and lays eggs.

Males dart at intruders belligerently but they can do no harm; they have no stingers. Since these bees are not social, there is no worker caste to protect the nest. Stings of females are rare.

New adults emerge after the middle of summer and can be seen feeding at flowers until they seek overwintering sites, sometimes in the tunnels.

Carpenter Bee Habitat Alteration and Pesticide Application

Carpenter bees drill into the end grain of structural wood or into the face of a wooden member, then turn and tunnel with the grain. Since this will ultimately destroy the integrity of the wooden member, you should call Regional Pest Management as soon as you see the distinctive carpenter bee tunnel.

Regional Pest Management will dust the tunnels and inject with pressurized liquid insecticide; insert a dusted plug of steel wool or copper gauze in the tunnel; fill the opening with caulk, wood filler, or a wooden dowel. A dusted plug stops new adults who otherwise would emerge through shallow caulking.

Cicada Killer Wasps

Cicada killers are very large yellow and black relatives of mud daubers, however, they do not look like mud daubers. More than one inch long, they look like "monster" yellowjackets. Cicada killers can be ignored by those who accept an explanation of their harmless nature. Each wasp, being a female, has a stinger; each can sting. Due to their size and fierce looks, however, stings are extremely uncommon. When there is undue worry about these huge wasps, open soil burrows can be dusted individually; the female will be killed when she returns.

For more information, please select these pages:

About the Bee

Yellowjackets - Your Uninvited Picnic Guests

Mud Dauber Wasps

The Giant Hornet Wasp

Paper Wasps

Get the Point about Bee Stings