Carpenter bees and bumblebees could not be more different. They are both pollinators and both build nests but that is essentially where the differences stop. The bumblebee is not especially aggressive but will sting if it feels threatened. The carpenter bee females on the other hand are very aggressive and defensive of their nest. They don’t like anyone entering their territory. The bumblebee and the carpenter bee females can only sting once, they are both bees, neither of them is wasps or hornets. The carpenter bee is simply an unusual type of bee that burrows into the wood. For this reason, having carpenter bees in residential and commercial areas can be problematic as they destroy wooden structures. This can be very dangerous as the wooden structures could collapse with someone standing on them.
The carpenter bee searches for a place to nest by hovering over wood, the land and feels the texture to see if it is a good spot to tunnel, if not they fly off and hover somewhere else. Only the female carpenter bees can tunnel in the wood and they are also the only ones that can sting. They lay the eggs and they build the tunnels for the nests. They do almost all aspects of the work to build the nest and raise children, the men can do none of this and have only one purpose: mating.
The carpenter bee female makes long tunnels through the wood of your home. They are like catacombs with spaces on both sides to lay eggs. The female carpenter bee will make honey and produce bee bread which she leaves in the space with the egg, she then seals it up for the larva to grow and become an adult flying bee. These tunnels can get very large and complex and if you are not careful they could damage the wood on your property so severely that is starting to crack under pressure. If you have these pests on your property you can try keeping them away by painting or varnishing the wood they are drilling into but if they are entering through a place that is hard to reach like through weep vents, behind aluminum siding or at the drip edge then you will have to call a professional to handle it.
The biggest difference between bumblebees and carpenter bees is that bumblebees make their hives out of honey wax and they build them in the oil, usually under rocks or in tree roots. The nest looks nothing like a bee nest and is very messy. The nest is made up of open egg housings that are egg-shaped. The bees will lay larva and provide it with some bee bread made from pollen. Carpenter bees nest in wood. They create catacombs with openings on either side where they lay their larva and feed it with a ball of pollen and regurgitated nectar. They burrow in wood-like carpenter ant who share their name but they do not eat it, also like carpenter ants. They instead eat the same things as other bees, pollen to make honey.
