Roxy Bisquaint

Anyone else have a yearly battle with carpenter bees? We get menaced by them all summer long. They have holes bored along the bottom of our railing and they come back to them every spring. They sit up in there and nest and chew... and chew... and chew. You can actually hear them chewing inside the railing! I sometimes wonder if our whole railing is basically hollow now. We've been here over 10 years and the holes were already here when we moved in. I think these bees have been at it for decades.

Maybe this weathered old hard wood is extra tasty to carpenter bees because nothing seems to discourage them: bee killer, spray foam, canned air. If you plug up the hole, the eat it open again. If you kill one, another takes its place. So mostly what we rely on is just swatting them with a tennis racket. Once they've been hit by that, they know to take off as soon as you pick it up, though (they're smarter than they look, these bees!).

They are very territorial, so once they move in for the season, they try their best to keep us away. One of their favorite intimidation tactics is to hover about chest level right at the top of the steps, so whether you're coming up or going down, you have to face the wrath in order to pass. But even just sitting in a chair on the porch, as I was this evening, they harass. They like to hover about two feet away from you for a bit, then start doing close-proximity fly-bys. Very annoying.

This is the bee who was menacing me this evening:


Fresh gnawings below the hole he was protecting:


Here's the hole (you can see another bee in there):

My neighbor across the street came running over:

I'm so glad to see you! No one's seen you in a long time. Everyone was worried. We hadn't seen you! I'm glad you're all right. I was worried. No one had seen you!

Apparently, I had been presumed dead by at least two neighbors.

Admittedly, I don't leave the house that often. We do eat out a lot of evenings and I run a few errands a week, but since I work from home, I spend most of my time, well, home. You do realize in modern society there is almost no need to leave the house (Campbell ScottI still love you). Also, my dog died almost 3 months ago. She was an ailing pup and when she was still with us, I was out there like 5 times a day helping her do her business. Her absence precipitated my absence from the great outdoors, which brought an abrupt end to frequent neighbor-waving and occasional chit-chattiness. It was also winter, so it's not like I was trimming the yard or sitting on the front porch enjoying the weather. My neighbor had obviously missed my brief appearances over the last few months. But I don't exactly stroll or saunter. I tend to whisk and breeze. I must move quicker than I realized. Either that or I become invisible to others when ultraviolet light hits my body.

Anyway, I am alive.