April 5, 2009
Hi. Your article was very helpful. But I have a question. We get 1 or 2 black carpenter bees in our backyard every spring/summer. They don’t really do anything but scare us. But yesterday we saw a bee that looked and acted just like a carpenter bee except it was totally orange. The whole body. Could that still be a carpenter bee? Just curious. Thanks for your time.
Most likely a Valley Carpenter Bee. These are are commonly seen as being golden or tan and very fuzzy. They live on the western side of the US but can migrate. They’ve been described as “gold” and even orange. We suspect it’s the local light that makes their color vary. Regardless of their color, they’re still very much carpenter bees and can be controlled as described in our carpenterbee control article.
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