Carpenter Bees

[cmjust0]

Here's a little tidbit for ya... Male carpenter bees have a yellow dot on their heads, while females have a shiny, black, 'darth vader' head with no dot. Males don't have stingers, but females do. Typically, its the males who do most of the harassing while the females are typically very mission-oriented and won't bother you as they go around collecting food, boring holes, and laying eggs for next year's crop -- but they will defend a nest!

So, if you see a carpenter bee kinda hovering and stalking around you instead of buzzing back and forth like a B52, it's probably a female. Look at her head... If you don't see a dot, it's definitely a female, and you're probably within a few feet of her nest.

KILL HER.

Don't waste your time on the males, because they're mostly harmless...BUT KILL ALL THE FEMALES YOU CAN. Killing one female carpenter bee now is the equivalent of killing HUNDREDS of carpenter bees over the coming years. It also seems to me that there are tons of males to every one female.....

I've been following that strategy around my house for a couple years now. When we first moved in, I could stand out on my side deck with a fireplace shovel and go into extra innings with carpenter bees, but they're considerably harder to find today.

Not exactly a short-term strategy, I know, but you're in a war here...not a battle.

 

[CountryPantry]

We call them Bomber Bees here because they dive bomb all the time. Through the years of fighting them both in Florida and here we have found that if you coat the area of the hole with kerosene oil (brush it on like paint) it will deter them a little. Nothing really works totalllly on them. I hate all the holes that they can bore so quickly. Also patch up the holes when you see them with a silicone based putty/caulking. This will kill the eggs in the nest.

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

We have tons. THey bore into anything..painted or not.

We actually 'play' with them at times. Catch them, swat them with the baseball bat, etc...

 

[sparkles2307]

OMG as if its not bad enough to have those things crawling over every wodden surface on the homestead, we have mud-dauber wasps too and they seem to like our canvas chairs the BEST for building nests on....ugh so gross!

 

[JewellFarm]

My back deck is stained, and it doesn't stop them from boring holes in it. I wish I knew how to totally get rid of those darned things to! I use a piece of molding trim and play bee ball on my back deck. I'm getting pretty good at it now, LOL.

 

[sandy sea]

We had a nest in a wall in our house. They came in thru the painted wall under the roof. At first being a two story house I did not know what was making the loud humming noise. Drove me crazy, because my husband could not hear it and told me I was hearing things. After about 2 week, the bees were starting to die and it started to stink. That is when we got someone to spray for them.

 

[kathyinmo]

What kind of spray? We have them, destroying our shed! How do you get rid of the darn things?

 

[Mahonri]

BTW, my chickens LOVE fighting over the ones I kill and give to them.

 

[annek]

I don't like to kill them, they do pollinate my plants and we need all the bees we can get. I close up their holes and if they are persistent they do have to go. I took some old wood and put it out in the woods behind my house. I hope they relocate there. I had one that just wouldn't leave my coop alone.Since the chicks moved in, haven't seen it. I think they did.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Yeah, they pollinate plants, and we all know what is going on with honeybees.