White Pine Board and Batten FAIL

[mike_belben]

Nothing eats motor oiled wood.  If a stack of wood is gonna touch the ground, the first piece being soaked in oil will quadruple its lifespan as long as there is good runoff and airflow.  


We have the bees pretty bad and its not just carpenters.  Many many times i see bumblebees coming out of the hole.  Which help my garden and i really hate to kill.   Theyll go after a store bought 2x severely despite being attached to a sea of roughcut oak. 


Hit the holes at night with a shot of ether or carb cleaner thru the straw. Just watch your eyes.

[kantuckid]

I think my bee traps have helped.  I need to finish some siding and then coat with some stain.

I still have bee traps all over our log house. This recent warm weather we haven't seen any wood bee activity and they are usually out some now on sunny days. Last summer I hired an Amish roofer to do a steel standing seam roof and also wrap the gable rafters in steel made by the roofing company mfg. I tired of sprays. doweling holes, ugly yellow bee poop, several brands of woodpeckers and holes in my house. Maybe not gone but heavily restricted now.
EWP is a VG outside wood if properly situated and maintained.

[kantuckid]

Rumor has it they will avoid eastern hemlock. Not sure if that applies to young growth as well as old growth with the higher acid content..

Their native tree species are said to be cedar and poplar. I serious doubt that hemlock deters them? They drill into PT wood, why not hemlock. Paint or solid stains slow them down some. Steel is best.

[kantuckid]

We had the bees in our porch here in Western North Carolina. We heard that hornets nests are a deterrent. Read up and my wife made two ''nests'' out of onion bags and dryer lint and we hung them on the porch. We had no bee or paper wasp activity in the vicinity last year.... Time will tell if they get on to us or not as spring is in the air.

A stack of EWP beams under roof gets attacked by wood bees and the hornets obviously fight them each summer-maybe they eat the bees larvae?

[Don P]

Where there is a mix of hemlock and EWP on a barn they do seem to much prefer the pine.

[Trackerbuddy]

This from DIY pest control dot com
You can prevent Carpenter Bees from drilling those holes in the exterior of your homes if you spray a residual insecticide on the exterior surfaces before they start nesting activity.
We suggest FenvaStar EcoCap, LamdbaStar UltraCap 9.7 CS, or Cyper WSP Insecticides. Spray on the areas that are vulnerable to Carpenter Bee holes. Usually these vulnerable areas are unpainted or unvarnished woods. Popular drilling choices for carpenter bees include under siding, under deck rails, under eaves, window frames, etc.

With an active infestation, we suggest the Carpenter Bee Kits that contain a residual insecticide to mix with water and spray. It also includes insecticide dust and duster to dust into the carpenter bee galleries.
Some of the kits include a special duster (B&G 1150 R Duster)  with a curved tip in order to get the D-Fense or Tempo insecticide dusts to the galleries.

[Brad_bb]

Insecticide works - for that year only.  It washes off, or becomes inert over time and they come back.  So my choices were to have the pest control guy treat the building every single year until I'm dead, or change the siding and bee done with it.   I chose the latter- to Hardie Board siding.

[Jstier]

Some of you may have seen my responses in the past regarding carpenter bees and softwoods.....well now it's worse.

Back in 2016, built a large timberframe and sided it with 12" white pine board and batten.  Looked great.  I did seek advice about using White Pine as siding here on the forum and from a few other timberframers.  The concern was really about rot, but no one ever mentioned carpenter bees.  The following spring carpenter bees bored 1/2" holes under the eaves, and in some of the trim around the ovehead doors.  They were so prolific that we decided we had two choices, have to pay to spray every spring in perpetuity, or remove all the siding and trim and re-side in hardie board.  We weren't going to do it for a few years though.  This week I took a walk around the building and found more damage this time from a woodpecker or several, apparently pecking to find carpenter bee larvae that had escaped our previous efforts.  This is what they did in a very short time.  The moral of the story is that you should not use softwood for  exterior use, unless you live far enough north that carpenter bees are not an issue.  Where I'm from in IL, there are no carpenter bees.  This building was built in Indianapolis, just 3 hours south, but in the range of carpenter bees.


 

 

   The carpenter bees must have bored holes for the eggs under the lip of the window sill trim as there was no visible holes on the outside or top.  The wood pecker tested the wood and can hear the hollowness of the bee larvae tunnel in the wood.  They then set about pecking their way to the grub.  I doubt the bees would attack hardwood, and they definitely won't be able to damage Hardie board.  Costly mistake.  

I live in Southeast Indiana and own a log home. We battle those little guys every year. We spray, plug holes, dust holes and if you miss one the wood peckers will let you know. Thankfully they only touch our eaves and trim. One of the many reasons its nice owning my mill.   

I built a Sawmill shed out of Ash B&B and they haven't touched it either. Guess they should of built my cabin out of ASH haha