Carpenter Bees?? Help

[Ridgewalker]

Gotta get me some .22 shotshells. Sound like a fun game!

I can see it now, "aw, honey, don't worry 'bout that hole in the siding, I can fix that...but did you see that shot!!!"

Truly I think it could be done.

I'll buy into the shooting with a .22. Had a friend who would wait till he had an audience and then go get his .22. He used the bird shot. Of course he wouldn't tell anybody about the birdshot unless he got busted. He had a great time of it. Called it "sporting bees". We call the critters wood bees here. I guess if you are into tennis or badmitton that would be fun also.

 

[czechsonofagun]

I use leave rake, it reaches higher than a tennis rocket, but I think it is time to make a trap too, the barn is always buzzing with them.

 

[deepNdirt]

they have taken Haven to my place as well because we have all types of fruit tree's and berry plants etc, and in a sense we need the bee's to help with pollination although the reward of the fruits is no where equal to the cost of their damage,
If you think the Bee's are bad wait until the woodpeckers find out the bee's have laid larva in the wood, between the 2 they can destroy the wood trim fascia boards of a house, they used to be contained down at my barn boring away at the rafters, although now they have found their way to better more luxury living, ( in the fascia of my home ) I used to simply carve out a plug and glue driving it into the hole, but then woodpecker come along and tear into the hole and chisel 4"-8" long slit to get to the larva's.. Yes the Bee's can tunnel this far into the wood, by this time their is nothing left to do but replace the damaged wood, it is truly a loosing Battle, I have spent days repairing caulking filling of the holes to get ready to re-paint and in just 1 day they will have more holes bored,:mur: I plan to cover the sofit with vinyl and alumn fascia,......... I have found that they do not like man made material's such as OSB & Masonite,........... I wish I had an answer :confused3:

 

[rmasonjr]

As a test, I filled a few holes with expanding foam leftover from another project. Filled the holes completely until it expanded out.

A few days later....there were fresh holes in the FOAM! I never would have guessed they would eat polyurethane foam. Unbelievable.

 

[forgeblast]

I have some friends who put in steel wool and then wood putty, they claim it keeps them out. i have everything stained wood wise so i dont find them that much of a problem.
can you give them a sacrifical piece of wood to keep them in one area and out of another? I can see how they would be nasty, when i added a lean too to our barn, before it was stained i had a bee spitting at me, found out he was drilling a hole and then dropping the wood. used a power sprayer the next day and dont have problems now.

 

[tallyho8]

This tool from Harbor Freight is the easiest thing I have found to get rid of the bees. The kids love playing with it and zapping the bees. I can just sit back and watch. And at only $2.99 the price is unbeatable.
Search results for: 'bug zapper'

One day they killed 74 carpenter bees in the barn. The next day it seemed like just as many were there as the day before. I need to try out the bee trap.

 

[bdeboer]

I have had success with yellowjackets placing "Sevin" dust on a piece of cardboard where they were entering an outdoor light fixture. I bent the cardboard into a shelf and tucked it up under the light and put a little bit of the "Sevin" on the shelf. The theory behind this is that the Sevin will get on their feet an track it into the nest. I haven't tried it with carpenter bees but suspect it would work.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Can't you do the soffits and eaves in that cement board, Hardi Plank. We just put it on a garage at a rent house. Can they drill through that?

 

[carpenter383]

I too have problems with carpenter bee's. My solution is to fill the hole with pl400 (or any kind of construction adhesive) Seems to work good.

 

[Trkrd]

I had them boring into the rafters on my new deck. Needed to put water sealer on the wood anyway so I added a little malathion to the sealer before applying and it seems to have fixed the problem. No new holes.