Well I found out that they are not bumblebees they’re called carpenter bees. That makes so much more sense now. They eat right through the wood. They don’t actually digest it, but they do gnaw it with their little bee teeth or whatever they have. The main difference between the bees is that the carpenter bees aren’t hairy and don’t have any yellow on their lower abdomen. Oh yeah, and they eat through wood. The males are aggressive, but lack a stinger. The females have a stinger, but are very docile. Apparently they can do enough damage to severely weaken the structural integrity of wood. So I guess that means we should spray them, slap them with swatters and show them the boot.
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Not only do the male carpenter bees lack a stinger, they also apparently lack a brain. From the Wikipedia page: “Males spend many hours guarding their territory against other male bees, hovering about the nests for hours on sunny days. They sometimes attempt to mate with other insects or small birds.”
Small birds!?! How small are we talking?
I wouldn’t hang a hummingbird feeder if I were you.