Regarding your ABCs.. Anti Bee Crusades

[jnjpream]

I was at the farm supply store this fall and saw a box blade with foam sprayed around all the scarifiers. Apparently a couple years back, some guy bought the thing and then returned it to the store after spraying it down with foam. (Not sure why the store even let him return it, but..) The store hadn't been able to get rid of it because of the foam. It seems that nobody was sure what the heck the guy did to it and why. But near as I could tell, the thing had never touched dirt.

So I bought it for about the price of scrap.. Today I was cleaning the foam off the scarifiers and support bar, and as soon as I punched through the first chunk of it inside the support bar it became VERY obvious why the guy hosed it down with foam. Bees, and LOTS of them.

As I dug out the remaining foam and the piles of bees nests (thankfully all dead at this point) I wondered, was this guy on the right track? And I thought this would be a good question to post on TBN..

What do you, or have you, done to keep bees from nesting in your equipment? What worked, what didn't?

 

[Engine66]

I had a hornet's nest on my grader blade and used the foaming agent that sprays 20' and it worked well. If it had been bees, I would have tried to save them by making my blade an undesireable place to call home...maybe use a smoldering piece of firewood to make it smokey or another non-lethal method. Bees help polinate and are good contributers to the ecosystem. Now, if they invade the house, attic, etc. or attack my wife or kids, then game on.

I have used tarps on a couple of my attachemets and have not had a single bee, wasp, hornet, etc. begin to build a nest. Maybe it's the heat that builds up inside the tarp or the rustling of the tarp during the breeze that keeps them away...not sure. I bet someone here on TBN has some expertise on the subject and could chime in. Sounds like you got a great deal...

 

[Hooked_on_HP]

I wonder if the bees were in it when he bought it. He may have got it home and in the nice warm garage and the bees started coming out. That would also explain why they let him return it.
Bill

 

[Captinjack]

Any place I have an open pipe or square tubing, I fill the void at the open end with foam to prevent the bees from making a nest inside. It works well and these kinds of place WILL be occupied by bees on a continuing basis.

 

[jnjpream]

So it sounds like removing the foam was probably the wrong thing to do..? The foam was making it tough to move the scarifiers.

Is there a better way to keep the buggers out? Or do I need to refill it with foam and do a better job of cutting the openings? And won't it tend to trap moisture with foam pluggin the openings?

 

[Stimw]

I worked for a company (briefly) that had welding tables with jigs that they stored outside until needed. A guy that worked there told me about bringing a table in and he started welding. The under side had a wasp nest and they didn't like the heat. I don't remember if he said he got stung but I sure checked any table before moving it!!

 

[JeremyL]

I am against crusading against bees! They have enough problems, and we need them for pollination. Wasps on the other hand can be pests. (Though most wasps are beneficial and help control harmful insects.) End of sermon; now for my story.

My place came with an old, giganitic sattelite dish in the back yard. I decided to give it away. The day before the guy was coming to get it I went to put some penetrating oil on the rusted nuts and see if I could break them loose. I opened the 12" X12" metal box where all the wires converged and, WOOO, it was full of wasps. They were not amused. I screamed like a girl and ran for it, coming back with Wasp Spray.

Here is the interesting part. After the whole dish and assembly were dismanteled and gone the wasps that I had not sprayed continued to come back to where the nest had been, hovering in mid air exactly where their home should have been. How did they do that? The strong visual cues (box, post, dish) were gone. Scent? The only thing I could smell was wasp poisen. They kept looking for the nest for the rest of the day.