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Carpenter Bees

Started by rooster 58, May 18, 2022, 10:14:23 PM

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rooster 58

I wasn't sure where to post this topic, but guys here certainly know lumber, and seem to know about stuff like this. 
       So my wife and I bought this small house/cabin in WV that I am remodeling. The main structure seems to be unfazed by the carpenter Bees. The cabin is ship lapped siding that I believe to be poplar. But the porches are built with store bought lumber that is infested with carpenter bees. You can usually see a couple dozen bees flying around most of the day. My question to all is what can I do to get this issue under control? Thanks guys, I'll be waiting to hear from you folks.

Old Greenhorn

yeah, they are a problem. My buddy has he same troubles. I made some traps for him last year, but was a little late in the season, this year they are working better. It was in a thread someplace, but i can't fin it. Just google for 'carpenter bee traps' and you will find some very easy builds to hang around our structures. I made about 6 traps in about 15 minutes with scrap pine off the mill.
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

WV Sawmiller

   You can make bee traps. There are plenty of designs but basically they are a wood box with a 1/2" diameter hole drilled at a 45 degree angle upward. You put a bottle or jar in a hole in the bottom. They go in the hole then can't see the exit so go out in the bottle or jar and die. Hang them where bees are common. They are fun to catch. Some people swat them with badminton rackets or shoot them with pistol or shotgun loads reloaded with "dust" or real fine shot.

   Realistically you will have to spray the wood with poison to keep them away. Good luck.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

metalspinner

WV Sawmiller,
My weapon of choice is a Red Rider Carbine Action BB Gun. A little cross wind can cause issues. :D
I do what the little voices in my wife's head tell me to do.

JRWoodchuck

You should be careful with that Red Rider I hear people shoot their eye out with those things!
Home built bandsaw mill still trying find the owners manual!

Brad_bb

The only permanent way to not have a problem going forward is to build with (replace) materials that they like with ones they don't.  My shop a built a few years ago had white pine Board and batten siding and trim.  Well the carpenter bees liked that.  Last summer we stripped all the board and batten and installed Hardie board, a cement fiber product that will last a long long time.  You can get it in 3/8 thick 4'x8' sheets or use the thick trim pieces to make board and batten(much more expensive).  

Carpenter bees don't generally like dense hardwood.  They like poplar which is relatively soft.

Traps and spraying insecticide/borates are effective, but you would have to do it religiously every season, which is why I opted for the material change.  
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

moodnacreek

The problem is that they don't eat wood so borates and such don't work. It took me 2 summers of spraying active holes and plugging and replacing pine with harder woods to get them under control at my house only, not the out buildings. If I didn't work at home I could have never done that much.

aigheadish

We get a ton of them as well. They are pretty rough on parts of the deck, swingset, and shed. I've heard that the traps do help a bunch. I need to build some. They do not seem interested in the wood used to build my shop (just normal hardware store junk) yet(?) and there's painted stuff around they don't seem to like, which I've heard is a good deterrent. They are big time jerks, especially because there is soooo much other wood for them to burrow into, namely the dead trees all over. 
New Holland LB75b, Husqvarna 455 Rancher, Husqvarna GTH52XLS, Hammerhead 250, Honda VTX1300 for now and probably for sale (let me know if you are interested!)

YellowHammer

Traps work good, but it takes a lot of them. We have 8 hanging around our barn and empty hundreds of bees out of them every year.

Another good way is to make some "Bee Goop" as I call it.  Take some vaseline and mix in a dose of pyrethrin powder, or other contact killer, or stuff like Delta Dust, until it's a thick paste.  Then go to every hole you can find and glob a little goop into it and when the bees go in they get some on them and then they will die.  As the next bee wants to use the hole, it will die too.  Deltadust has an effective life of several months so the goop just keeps on working the whole season.

The traps are for the bee holes that are too hard to get to, or to catch the flybys.



 
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

rustybill

I'm battling this same problem. I just bought some permethrin liquid to try spraying around the areas the bees are infesting. I'll let you know how that works.

Don P

A neighbor just got a foaming spray at Lowes I had not seen before, an andro product. The active ingredient was .005%, didn't recognize it but that must be some wicked stuff. Heavy paint and hard woods are tougher than their jaws.

Unclefish


aigheadish

I've sprayed carb cleaner into the holes and with the straw on the can it works great. I heard that somewhere and it works pretty well.
New Holland LB75b, Husqvarna 455 Rancher, Husqvarna GTH52XLS, Hammerhead 250, Honda VTX1300 for now and probably for sale (let me know if you are interested!)

NE Woodburner

A direct hit with carb cleaner will knock them down. I find if you get them just as they are entering or exiting a hole they are an easier target than trying to get them in flight, but I have knocked them down in flight as well. I made a few traps with limited success. Based on previous posts, maybe I need to make a lot more...

breederman

This morning I killed two with a flyswatter. One of them was on a trap😏
Together we got this !

D6c

I have used Tempo insect spray but has to be reapplied fairly often.  I've also got several bee traps hanging in the open side of my sawmill shed and they catch quite a lot.
We never had carpenter bees until about 5 years ago (Iowa) but now they've moved in big time.

TimW

I haven't seen any insect fly or crawl away from a squirt of Acetone.  Well, I haven't tried it on fire ants.  It would be cost prohibitive for them.
hugs,  Brandi
Mahindra 6520 4WD with loader/backhoe and a Caterpiller E70 Excavator.  My mill is a Woodmizer LT40HD Wide 35hp Yanmar Diesel. An old Lull 644D-34 called Bull

Sixacresand

Rumor is that a puffed out brown paper bag suspended from a rafter by a sting will deter carpenter bees  Bees think it is a hornet's nest which supposedly prey on them.  I have not tried it.  The traps work well. 
"Sometimes you can make more hay with less equipment if you just use your head."  Tom, Forestry Forum.  Tenth year with a LT40 Woodmizer,

jasonb

Fill a garden sprayer with water and dishwashing liquid solution.  Spray directly into the holes and wait for the bee fall to the ground.  You know what to do after that.


Takes a couple years to get rid of all of them. 
HM122

kantuckid

I was in that crowd that shot them with a BB gun or .22 pistol using #12 shot from my front porch until I screened it in. That was when they first began showing up. 
 They are a true challenge! I've used several commercial insecticides -go to "do your own pest control" or other websites (prices vary) that sell the good stuff to the masses. It probably helps some but they breed like rabbits. ;D If you study up on them cedar and poplar are their native habitat choices but honestly, other than hardwoods they bore into anything woodwise. 
I recently posted that they'd ruined a PT stair stringer via 13 holes in the underneath side where you don't usually look. Holes often are a foot or longer!  
The web info says to plug with a hardwood dowel. Guess what, they'll drill their way out somewhere else! Caulking same thing and some come out thru the wet caulk. 
Last summer I had an Amish crew place metal roofing and also had metal made to cover my gable rafters. Guess what, they now go after what's left uncovered! 
Yes, I have MANY bee traps on my gable eaves, even under the front porch. Mine use a pt jar which is often filled by winter. They seem to stay alive in there for a very long time but don't get out. WD40 and many other things do kill them sprayed in a hole when you make contact. 
I've wondered why they have become such a huge menace? Time gone by they were around but nothing like now. I use a contact insecticide to kill the Asian Ladybugs come fall but if it affects the wood bees I cannot tell it.  
Kan=Kansas;tuck=Kentucky;kid=what I'm not

kantuckid

Quote from: 2 Jugs on May 21, 2022, 10:10:49 AM
Fill a garden sprayer with water and dishwashing liquid solution.  Spray directly into the holes and wait for the bee fall to the ground.  You know what to do after that.


Takes a couple years to get rid of all of them.
Yea, sure thing... :D 
Kan=Kansas;tuck=Kentucky;kid=what I'm not

jasonb

I went out and got 7 after making that post.  You can laugh but it works for me.
HM122

kantuckid

I was not trivializing your fix for bees. I was thinking towards how many we have and how high up they hangout around our house.
 It's well known that a soap mixture does kill insects, mostly aphids in my mind, but includes wood bees. The hose thing would not make my wife real happy as she just finished her spring cleaning not long ago and held off the windows until last thing as pollen comes down like heavy snow here. Given their aerial acrobatics you'd not be done around here in a few minutes to catch them not flying here and hit em with a hose and there might just be a months long job involved. My trap jars get full to the top and often.  
I will say that some of the web info suggesting various wood bee fixes is simply a waste of time. The one that easily comes to mind is to caulk the holes when they're gone. They don't leave a sign up to say they've quit using the holes and if you caulk one with a larvae inside it crawls out as does the bee placing the thing in there. 
I hate them.  
 
Kan=Kansas;tuck=Kentucky;kid=what I'm not

moodnacreek

Here in N.Y. we can't buy bee killing dust. The stuff we can get does nothing except color them white.                                        Here is a Question and a comment; can carpenter bees and their hatchlings be caulked in?   I know that in the air they will not bore in a 1" space. This knowledge comes from years of stickering white pine.  But once they do start boring they keep going so I guess I answered my question about the adult but what about the newly hatched?

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