Bee people, what are these things doing??

[secuono]

I'm sure lots of people wonder this and I've wondered about it ever since I first saw a bee!
What the heck are bees doing when they are just hovering in one spot all day long?? They just sit there, occasionally circling the tree, porch, w/e they are posted at and then back to just hovering, waiting, watching and chasing off other bees.....

I really don't get it, they aren't getting any pollen, not bothering the plants, not landing on anything, not flying away and returning. No bee hives, no other bees, there's nothing there that I could possibly see as interesting to the bees....

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

you say by your porch? have you noticed any small holes that look like they were drilled into part of an overhang or maybe the facial boards? if you see holes like that you may have carpenter bees hovering around. i have those over our porch and i found out what they were last year when i looked them up. they won't produce honey and can do some damage to that facial board over time since they will continue to keep using that hole and digging out more chambers to keep filling it with more eggs for more bees. sort of like what a mason bee does with their holes but worse damage over time. they will still pollinate plants but aren't as focused on collecting it like honey bees.

 

[hoodat]

I've never seen honey bees hover. Perhaps they are hoverflies (syrfids). Some of them are camouflaged to look like a bee or wasp so birds will leave them alone. BTW hoverflies are excellent aphis predators.

 

[secuono]

Lol, who knows exactly what species they are. I'm not going to try and catch one just to find out.
I see them hovering all over, any random object, plant, etc. There's one outside the bathroom window 'keeping guard' the mulberry tree. Another is over the addition's roof, one at the side porch, two at the front porch that keep chasing each other and another by the sycamore tree near the coop. That one 'bumped' me yesterday, guess I walked past him too close, but I didn't know he was there until after. There's no holes on anything they are stationed at, though, I'm not trying that hard to find holes.... There are some ground holes, but it seems like those are from the cicadas that came out the other night.

 

[bid]

That sounds like carpenter bees to me, if this is a rather large bee. The males just hang around showing off their aerial acrobatic skills and chasing off other males. The females are busy drilling holes in the nearest handy wood they can find to build a nest. Look for a little pile of sawdust.

 

[bj taylor]

I think there are some native bees that hover like that. I'm no honey bee expert, but I don't think honey bees do that.

 

[JimWWhite]

I'm sure lots of people wonder this and I've wondered about it ever since I first saw a bee!
What the heck are bees doing when they are just hovering in one spot all day long?? They just sit there, occasionally circling the tree, porch, w/e they are posted at and then back to just hovering, waiting, watching and chasing off other bees.....

I really don't get it, they aren't getting any pollen, not bothering the plants, not landing on anything, not flying away and returning. No bee hives, no other bees, there's nothing there that I could possibly see as interesting to the bees....

If these are large black bees that look like bumblebees they're a wood borer bee or also they're known as carpenter bees. They're destructive because they bore into your wood trim and make nests inside the wood. This weakens the wood and eventually it will rot through. The best thing is to find their holes, shot a small spray of wasp spray into the holes and then seal them up with caulk. Their holes are about 3/8-inch and are usually vertical to the wood.

 

[JimWWhite]

I've been painting the garage for the past week and I had to replace two of the facia trim boards on each side of the building. The carpenter bees had a mess of the boards and I had to replace them. Both boards were riddled with their warrens which extended for up to eight inches from the original bore holes. Until I got them repainted the females kept coming back trying to bore holes and make new nests. Now that I have the harder finished paint on the facia they seem to have given up. I hope. I had a guy come out to spray for ants last week and pointed them out and he said to use WD-40 and stick the 'straw' applicator in as far as I could and give it a quick squirt. That drove them out or killed them.