[sharkweek]

Yes! 100% call local beekeepers when possible for an almost always free removal. A beekeeper will sometimes even PAY you so they can come move the hive.

No such luck with wasp and hornet nests though. Had to pay to have one of those removed from the siding in our house. And wow were they mad when the beekeeper started vacuuming them up.

Got talking to the guy for a while, fascinating industry. He's very nervous about the next 20 years when it comes to honeybees.

[paulie_a]

In the past there were companies that would take a hornet hive for free. They'd drop it into a nitrogen filled container and sell the hornets for medical research

My memory is fuzzy on the details but that's the gist of it

[reaperducer]

What about carpenter bees? I've seen a lot of those around lately and have been thinking about checking the roof. Do they have the same value as honey bees?

[winslow]

Yes! Carpenter bees are just as important as honey bees. While they don't create honey like honey bees do these carpenter bees are vital for pollination.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_bee#Ecological_signi...

[fersho311]

Carpenter bees are awesome, they pollinate flowers (so we can have fruits in our backyard) and have an awesome short life of minding their own business.

[S_A_P]

They also have a voracious appetite for Georgia Pine which happens to be the material my inlaws summer home is made from. Not to be outdone, woodpeckers also enjoy eating a carpenter bee and their babies, so we end up with holes from the carpenter bees along with a string of holes made by woodpeckers in search of said bees.

Im not really too worried about being stung by them, and I agree they generally dont want to mess with you unless you are actively messing with their burrow. I have taken to putting out sacrificial 2x4s each season that I pre-drill(3/4" holes seem to do the trick) to attract the bees to easier pickings. This helps quite a bit, but I still have to end up spraying a few holes in our siding and deck each year as it will soon be swiss cheese if I do not...

[jgjot-singh]

So you live inside a vegan art installation?

[danans]

A couple years ago I relocated a piece of driftwood from my small backyard to the front yard because a carpenter bee couple had taken up residence in it and the male was routinely dive-bombing us in the backyard (they don't sting, but are just aggressive).

I was amazed to see that the male kept returning to the same spot for what seemed like weeks looking for its partner in the now relocated piece of driftwood. I naively had expected it to track down the piece of driftwood just 40 ft away in the front yard, and it was kind of heartbreaking to see it searching for it in desperation.

[zrail]

Sort of. We had carpenter bees in our deck one summer and they were incredibly agitated and aggressive whenever we tried to use it.