Perseverance

There was laundry to be done, dinner to think about, weeds to be pulled and a number of other things that should have had my attention, but as I sat in the backyard enjoying the sunshine and trying to capture a few birds, I became mesmerized by the male Carpenter bees hovering near what is probably a new nest under our deck.  As one or two of them kept hovering and coming back to the same area, I thought that surely I would be able to get a shot of one of them in flight.  Fortunately, I am blessed with a large amount of patience for such trivial and useless activities and I set about getting my shot.  After 150 shots, I think I succeeded.

There has been a lot of Carpenter bee activity around our porch and deck these last couple of days and we have already identified one hole in the eaves of the porch.  This is a male bee, as indicated by the yellow on his face.  The males will guard the nest and seem aggressive if anything or anyone goes near, but they have no stingers so there is no need to fear them.  While I don’t want to eliminate these pollinators, I don’t want them to put holes in the deck and porch, so we will plug the holes.  There are plenty of other bare wood surfaces on the split rail fencing surrounding the yard that they can use for nests.