Carpenter bees are not quite bees in the literal sense. They are something else. They tunnel and make their nests in wood-like Carpenter ants, hence the name, they are very dangerous to the house but are not a threat to humans really and are very necessary pollinators. Furthermore, they make individual partitions in the wood to lay their eggs in and rarely pose a threat to anyone. But due to the damage, they can cause to a house they are generally considered a threat and a pest and most people want them gone. Carpenter bees, like carpenter ants, do not eat the wood, they chew through it and dispose of the chewed wood dust out of the hole where it is mixed with feces and bee parts to become Frass. This is a dangerous material you should not touch. The bees can only burrow into raw wood, painting the wood on all sides will stop them from accessing it.
The abdomen of the normal carpenter bee is black and shiny, but the thorax is yellow and very fuzzy like a stuffed animal. This makes the illusion of a normal bee complete, but they are very much not honey bees. The males don’t have stingers but the females do and will use them when needed so don’t interfere with the nest if you aren’t about to destroy it with insecticide. If you are scared of doing it on your own you can always call the professionals to do it.
If you see the bees hanging around your house or some other wooden structure then you can be sure that that is where the nest is located. But don’t rush in guns blazing. You need to take note of where it is and make a plan to destroy it when the bees are least aware. This is because the bees tend to only be awake in the daytime, and like wasps, go to sleep at night. This is one reason it’s rare to see bees or wasps at nighttime. Killing the nest at night is the safest and most effective way of killing the swarm, you can use a product called diatomaceous earth to puff into the holes using a crack and crevice device. This material is collected from a mine and is the remnants of prehistoric single-celled organisms. The chemical is silica, but so fine it can float in the air. This will fill the hole with microscopic razor blades of silica that can slice open the waxy layer that keeps the fluid inside the insect. Painting over the wood can be effective, but there are numerous areas that cannot be reached by you to paint but can be reached by the insects. Because of this, a combination of painting and pest control products is your best bet. It is also a very good preventative measure. Stopping them from entering the wood of your house in the first place. Though this must include every piece of wood in the house, from studs to soffits which would require pulling down the drywall. Instead, you can seal areas you cannot protect with pain by using steel mesh and galvanized steel weep vent inserts, the pros call it exclusion, sealing off areas where insects and animals can get in. You can use pesticides but these bees are helpful pollinators. A better method of handling them is buying a bee hotel made of softwood that you can hang from a tree. They will use that instead of your home.
