July means the Purple Coneflowers and Daisies are competing for the lavish attention of the bees in our neighborhood. So far it seems the coneflowers are winning. There’s a symphony of bees constantly hovering on and around our stand of Echinacea purpurea.

The June Bugs are enjoying the coneflowers, too, and are doing their level best to make sure every petal has at least experienced a bite or two.

Many of the bees visiting our flowers are Carpenter Bees and a good part of our time is spent discouraging them from nesting in the wooden structures around our home. I’ve used a little insecticide in several nesting holes on our deck followed by stuffing the holes with aluminum foil and wood putty to discourage re-nesting. Our deck is made of treated lumber, but that doesn’t seem to matter much to the bees.

If anyone has any suggestions for discouraging carpenter bees from choosing our deck as home, sweet, home, we’d love to hear ’em! I don’t want to run them off altogether because they’re great pollinators, we just don’t want our deck chewed into a pile of sawdust!