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Carpenter bees

Catch them in carpenter bee traps, I have several in and around my barns and would take some pics but almost dark here now, google it and you will find all the info you need, the traps do work well, once they get in the jar they cant get out and die
 
Makes a flower water Sevendust mixture in a small cup stir it to a thick consistency with a spatula spirit with a carpenter bee has bored his whole when he attacks the whole again it will be his last. It works well on trimwork around the gutters.
 
grayrider,

I'm glad that you have had good results from your carpenter bee traps. I bought one last year and, although I have lots of carpenter bees in my barn and on my front porch, my trap caught a total of one bee last year and none so far this year. I don't know if the trap needs to be made from a certain kind of wood to draw the bees in, but my one trap hasn't really worked for me.

I did find out, however, that the female carpenter bees are aggressive and sting if they feel threatened. I normally just bat them away but one of my granddaughters was stung by one of them last year. That's when I found out about the females. I have no idea how to distinguish between the males and females so I'm a bit more judicious now about batting them away.

Tom in TN
 
Had no luck with a typical wood & jar carpenter bee trap. but do have good luck with wasp spray in their holes and surrounding area.
 
My traps have caught literally hundreds of them. Each year you need to take a piece of sandpaper and rough up the entrance holes as I believe that wood aroma draws them in, I have no problems with the bees boring in to my boards anywhere, Ive got 10 traps hanging up, most made from white pine and a few from cypress, have to empty the jars all along...
Also, make sure the dirt dawbers are not clogging the entrance holes up...
 
Agreed. Traps have not worked for me. Traps for two years and not a single carpenter bee but paper wasps built a nest in one trap.

Dean
 
Bees were eating wood around windows and facia. Only thing that works is covered wood with aluminum. Aluminum brake
cvphoto92125.jpg

Comes in handy.
 

I believe that the traps need to be mounted in the right place. You will see the bees flying around on the exterior of the surface of the building in the sun. It appears that they don't go into the building even through a very large opening.
 
I put traps up this year and not a one caught. My overhangs are high and I'm too old to climb and spray like I used to.

For Tom in TN: The males have a white spot on their head. They'll dive bomb you or anything flying by but it's all bluff. They don't dig the holes or sting.
 
Actually they do go into my building and bore the rafters.

Hanging bee traps nearby has been completely ineffective.

Dean
 
.22 rat shot, shoot them out of the air!

just use an old rifle you don't care too much for, the lead from he shot will build up.
 
I took the long approach. The ones that I could see, I killed with hornet spray or carb spray.
Then every month until fall, I would spray Delta dust into any holes I could find.
In the fall, I wood glued pieces of dowel rod into the holes that I could find and hung traps that you can find plans for on youtube.
Now the traps seem to catch most of them.
This was done on a tool shed that was on a piece of property I inherited, so these bees and their offspring were living there for decades.
 
grayrider,

Thanks for the advice. I'll try the sandpaper thing. The traps that I've seen around here are pretty expensive. I think I paid around $25.00 for the one that I bought. I would have bought more if I'd had better results from the one that I did buy.

Tom in TN
 
(quoted from post at 17:48:28 06/16/21) How do get rid of carpenter bees in my machine shed or keep them out? TIA
Click to expand...

I tried a DIY approach involving a ladder and a can of bug spray meant specially for these bees. Finally hired a professional exterminator because they were turning my overhangs and fascia down at my workshop into swiss cheese. Then woodpeckers would come and expand their holes to get at the bees inside. So far no more bees but a lot of damage to be repaired.

Gerrit
 
I've got them too, mostly in my tobacco barn. There's too many rails, too high, to climb all over the barn to find them. And I'm too old! I do have a trap in 2 other barns that really don't catch any, and the trap in the tobacco barn caught some early on but then they quit going in it. The rails they dig in are oak, very hard oak, but that does not stop them. I would like to spray them, but with so many rails it would very difficult to get them . The extension service recommends a powder that they drag into their holes as being the most effective. I have killed dozens with a bad mitten racket. Mark.
 
I make my own traps the wood needs to be soft and somewhat weathered. Kill one bee by hand and it releases a pheremone that attracts others. First year I had to empty the jars on my traps twice. The Female carpenter bee is black and usually comes out in the evening. Spectracide makes a spray that lasts for six months and kills on contact.
 
Tom, my son makes those traps out of 4 inch chunks of 4X4 pine. He drills intersecting 1/2 inch holes in the four vertical sides, and one intersecting hole up from the bottom. There's a fruit jar ring screwed to the bottom, with a fruit jar screwed on the ring. A piece of scrap copper wire makes a hanger for the trap. We get a 2 inch layer of dead wood bees in each jar over the summer. It appears to me that you should use untreated wood for these traps, but I have no evidence to back that up. Two 4 inch pieces of pine 2X4 tacked together would work good, I think.

Even with the traps, we still have bees, but not nearly as many.
 
Get an Airedale, they are great carpenter bee catchers. Not sure the carpenter bees sting, at least our ADT's never seemed to react to a sting and I've watched them catch many. Don't think they tasted good because the dogs seem to spit them out.
 
My swing isn't as fast as it once was so I found some bees would recover and fly off after being hit with the badminton racket. I had an old racket with rotted string so I restrung it with very small copper wire from a radio speaker. The wire being smaller than string cut down wind resistance. I skipped every other hole which fartar cut down on wind resistance but holes aren't large enough for a bee to pass through. Now if I make contact it usually cut's them into or at minimunm cut's a wing or something off.
 
Just checked my bee traps again.

Not a single carpenter bee after two years+ but now both have paper wasp nests inside.

Dean
 
I keep multi insect killer from Lowes or HD in my get around vehicle to spray fire ants.....4 gallon sprayer on an old JD L110 lawn tractor with the deck removed, a bicycle basket on the hood and a 4 gallon backpack sprayer on the rear with a 2 GPM 60 PSI sprayer.

Our unheard of -4F temp we had this winter plus over a week of below freezing temps put a big dent in the insect population including those pesky dirt dobbers and wasps. I'm just now starting to see bees, grasshoppers, and dobbers show up.
 
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