Carpenter Bees!

Bees That Bore Holes! That’s Bee with a B and that rhymes with T and that stands for Trouble! Hey, I’m supposed to be the Carpenter around here! 

Late spring and early summer brings these wood working experts in large quantities to my home. I hate these things! They have no respect for my property. They drill holes in exterior wood on the house. So called “treated” wood is no barrier. In fact, they seem to prefer the stuff. 

So why is this happening? Well it seems to be all about propagation of the species. These creatures (often confused with Bumble Bees) drill holes in wood in order to lay their eggs inside the holes. The holes actually turn ninety degrees a short distance after entering the wood and become long horizontal tunnels. The tunnels become housing for the eggs and larvae. To make matters worse, Woodpecker birds know all about this little process so they come along and peck more holes in the wood trying to feast on the eggs! As you can imagine, it is a problem when your home is the center of all this wood damaging activity. 

Last year as the swarms seemed to number in the hundreds of bees, I said enough! Time to fight back. An internet search for solutions encouraged me to build a “trap”. The carpenter bee trap is a little wood box that has holes in it to attract the bees. The theory goes they will enter the holes, fall down into the glass jar and be unable to get back out.  

It worked! (a little). I caught a few of the pesky critters this way but not enough to matter. 

What to do next? Well I set out after them the old fashioned way. Man against bee, armed with a trusty fly swatter! 

This worked well! For fun and sport I started counting my kills. 128 Carpenter Bees met their demise under the reign of red plastic. Some kills were more satisfying than others. The old two in one swipe was nice but the best was when nailing two who were “flying united” so to speak. Something very satisfying about that. Probably some Freudian explanation. I don’t know but I am sure about this: The population that returned this year was drastically reduced. Success. 

For further information, including several much more “professional” ways to handle this type infestation, check out this web site. Very informative.