Carpenters on a yellow ironweed

The three bees here are Eastern carpenter bees. The native eastern carpenter bee looks very similar to our native bumblebee.

The easiest way to tell them apart by sight is to remember the bumblebee has a very hairy abdomen with bands of yellow. By contrast, the carpenter bee has few hairs on a shiny, almost all black abdomen.

The eastern carpenter bee will bore a hole in wood just big enough to enter.

The support joists of an outdoor deck would be a good place to find these holes. A small pile of "sawdust" may litter the floor below.

The carpenter bee does not eat the wood, but uses the hole it drills out for nesting and raising its young.

In the forest, the carpenter bee will nest in dead limbs of large old trees and in dead snags. Adult carpenter bees will overwinter in holes they were raised in the previous spring. Woodpeckers may find these holes during winter and chip away until they dig out the bees and eat them.

The flower in my photo is a native plant called yellow ironweed. It is also called wingstem because of the vertical "wings" growing along the stem of the plant.