Yellowjackets (Vespula and Dolichovespula spp.)

Appearance: Small, black, and bright yellow patterned wasps. They are often confused with honeybees but are hairless and have much more defined, jagged yellow markings.
Behavior: Highly aggressive when their nest is threatened. They are scavengers often found near food, garbage cans, and picnics. Unlike bees, they can sting repeatedly.
Nests: Usually built underground in abandoned rodent burrows, but sometimes in aerial locations like eaves or wall voids.

Bald-faced Hornets (Dolichovespula maculata)

Appearance: Large, black wasps with distinctive white or ivory markings on their face, thorax, and the end of their abdomen. They are technically a type of yellowjacket, not a true hornet.
Behavior: Extremely defensive of their large, aerial nests. Their sting is notoriously painful.
Nests: Large, gray, papery, football-shaped nests typically found hanging from tree branches or the sides of buildings.

European Hornets (Vespa crabro)

Appearance: The only true hornet species in NY. Large (up to 1 inch), robust, with brown and yellow striped abdomens and a pale face.
Behavior: They are active at night and are attracted to light. While less aggressive than yellowjackets, their sting is very potent due to their size.
Nests: Usually built in dark cavities, such as hollow trees, wall voids, or attics.

Paper Wasps (Polistes spp.)

Honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Carpenter bee

Appearance: Slender, elongated bodies, commonly reddish-brown, or black with yellow markings. They are much less stout than yellowjackets. Their long legs dangle visibly in flight.
Behavior: Generally non-aggressive unless the nest is directly disturbed.
Nests: Small, open-celled, umbrella-shaped nests made of gray, papery material, typically found hanging from sheltered areas like porch ceilings, eaves, and window frames.

Appearance: Golden-brown and black, fuzzy, with banded abdomens.
Behavior: Essential pollinators. They are generally docile and will only sting when they feel their hive is threatened or if they are accidentally crushed.
The Stinger: Honeybees have barbed stingers. When they sting a mammal (like a human), the stinger becomes lodged in the elastic skin and is ripped from the bee's abdomen, killing the bee. The stinger continues to pump venom.
Nests: Managed hives (beekeeping boxes) or large feral colonies in hollow trees or wall voids.
Honeybees are federal protected. It is advised to call only if a swarm is actively attacking people or is located on public property. Local municipal agencies like NYC311. Do not handle or remove bees from private property.

Appearance: Carpenter bees are large-bodied insects that closely resemble bumble bees, featuring a shiny, metallic-looking abdomen rather than the densely fuzzy abdomen typical of true bumble bees.
Head & Sensory Organs: The head includes prominent compound eyes, ocelli (simple eyes), a pair of multi-segmented antennae, and strong mandibles used for chewing.
Thorax & Wings: The upper body features the pronotum, scutum, and tegula, supporting two pairs of wings: larger forewings and smaller hindwings.
Legs & Foraging Adaptation: Their legs are divided into the femur, tibia, and tarsus. Female carpenter bees possess a specialized pollen brush or scopa on their legs, which is used to gather and transport pollen.
Stinger Apparatus: Like other bees, females possess a stinger apparatus equipped with a venom sac, poison gland, and barbed lancet. However, male carpenter bees do not have a stinger and cannot sting.

Unlike social bees that build wax combs, carpenter bees are solitary or semi-social nesters that rely on wood tunnels:

Spring (Foundress Bee): A foundress bee excavates a clean, circular tunnel into bare wood to establish a nest. She provisions cells inside the wood with a "pollen loaf" (bee bread) and lays her eggs.
Summer (Active Nesting): Females provision multiple cells inside the wood tunnels to feed the developing larvae as they grow through their pupal stages.
Late Summer/Autumn (Emergence and Mating): The new generation of adult carpenter bees emerges from the tunnels to feed, fly, and mate.
Winter (Overwintering): Adult carpenter bees survive the cold months by overwintering safely inside these protective wood tunnels until spring begins anew.

Would you like to know more about how to manage or deter carpenter bees from wooden structures?