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Killing them in the hole doesn't or trapping bees doesn't solve anything - new bees just make new holes and keep laying their eggs and the offspring will return the following year to repeat the process. Keep in mind that the hole you see is the egress point for a series of chambers the bee created as part of her nursery tunnels. I've been fighting carpenter bees from late April to mid June for the 5 years and just come up with a solution two weeks ago. Fill the existing holes with a product that comes in a tube called Tangle Foot. This will cover their wings with a sticky substance as they exit after laying their eggs. Their offspring will also get a dose of the same sticky substance as they exit after exiting. BUT, to keep new bees from boring new holes spray the wood with 100% cheap white vinegar - insects have a very keen sense of smell and apparently bees don’t like the smell of vinegar. This year I sprayed white vinegar once a day for the past two weeks. a few bees will routinely return to my front porch near the wood and fly away. Another issue is that if the bee problem isn’t solved and if woodpeckers realize that there’s a feast of larvae in the holes they converge on the structure and do even more damage - this happened to one of my neighbors a few years back.
Rob Mullins I'm going to try your method..or seems that your way would defiantly kill them AND not have them come back. That's the important part..not having them come back. We have a pretty big garage we have to paint but these bees r all over it. My husband gets the tennis racket after them lol but that's only for a temporary fix lol. Hope your method works!!
The vinegar did NOT work..but I used another form of foam stuff to get into the holes they dropped like flies lol however u had to stomp on them to kill them. I see new ones flying around I'll have to get at them again before it gets to bad again.
My two cents. I use a homemade carpenter bee trap in conjunction with filling any holes with caulking. Latex or oil based, makes no difference. I live in a normal size house that has a front deck the carpenter bees and wasp/hornets seem to just love making their homes there. In my homemade carpenter bee trap I usually catch about twelve to thirteen bees every spring. In addition, there are about two to three carpenter bees that don't go for the trap and start drilling holes in my deck. For those, I make note of where they are and either two hours after the sun has set or early in the morning before it even starts to get light, I go out there with a caulking gun, rubber gloves, and a headlight on my head and start filling the hole until it's full and starts squirting out the sides. I smooth it over with a putty knife, wipe it down with a damp paper towel, and repeat for as many holes as there are. For wasp/hornets nests. While still light out I make note of where they are. Next I wait till about two hours after the sun has set, go out there armed with a hand held flashlight in one hand and wasp spray in the other hand. Find the nest, spray it, and leave the area. Next I check on it the next morning. Usually there is no activity or residence. I Scrap the nest off the wood and then stomp on what is left. Done. I've never had to do a large wasp, hornet, or yellow jacket nest. However if did come up against one of those, I would have to hire a professional and let him handle it. A lot can go seriously wrong, even if you know what you are doing.
🤣🤣🤣...tennis racket by my bro in law, then he pinned each one to another piece of wood...even the dachshund and lab loved biting at them...now, there's a new fence and no more bees 😂😂😂
I've been fighting off carpenter bees for years. The most significant thing I've done was to install ceiling fans and we leave them running on low all the time. The bees HATE the vibration. Second, I use cigarette filters dipped in malathion to plug the holes, at least the holes I can find. We still have about three or four bees that keep coming back every season, but it's nothing like it was; before, there were dozens. So many, we couldn't even sit on our deck. I like the foam idea, though.
Don’t kill the Bees, your deck will be fine, just a few holes, they deserve to live, it’s their fault they can’t distinguish cedar or pine decks from real trees.
@@Animalit55 No the deck won't be fine. They bore holes all through the wood turning it into honeycomb. Eventually, the deck will fall apart. Besides, there are plenty of trees around here where nobody will bother them.
@@Animalit55 They don't go away that easily. Eventually, you are going to have to address the HIVE. Where they are boring and breeding. It took me FOUR years to finally eliminate them. My dog has been very helpful, too. He catches them with his teeth. We were down to like the last half dozen returning bees and Scout ATE them. LOL
Well done and very informative, thanks. Haven't had a carpenter bee problem in years, then just this week I found some "sawdust" and one active bee. Glad to know they can be controlled.
I simply filled their holes on the underside of my deck railings with latex caulk. It stayed in place and I never saw any bees around the deck after that. In a more prolonged method, I made several carpenter bee wood-block traps that utilize clear plastic water bottles. They start collecting bees almost immediately. At the end of their activity cycle, I just throw the bottles of dead bees in the trash.
I had a wooden table for my BBQ that Carpenter bees found attractive. Eventually, I replaced it with a resin table, and watched as the bees stumbled about , trying to figure out what happened. Sort of like "Dude! Where's my House? I left it Right Here!' They searched for 2 days.
Why didn't you just leave the old table for the bees? They don't sting, in fact they are very docile and are pollinators. We need them. You could have had your new BBQ table and also let them have their home they made in the wooden table. Co-exist....something us humans have forgotten how to do. They are actually fascinating to watch.
@@timgreen4137 False. They don't have a wicked bite. Males do not have stingers, females do. Females only sting when "attacked" as in handled or stepped on in the lawn, etc. Males act aggressively but are all bravado.
They drilled holes along the main beam to my pool/deck area 6 inches apart. I didn't know about the foam, but did use the wood filler, 2 days later all of them were drilled out! They follow me around the yard staying about 5 ft away.
I use dowels to seal up the holes .Wood putty just falls out over time .I put glue on the dowel end and hammer it up as far as it will go and then cut the leftover off and go to the next hole and do it again
Thanks for the information ! I was painting my garage last summer and ran into these guys for the first time. I did everything except resprays. Good advice. I'll check the areas again this week.
Fill brown paper lunch bags with plastic bags to make a ball hang them up next to the bees entrance. The Carpenter bees think its a wasp nest, and within a week 10 days will leave the area. I have used this trick for years it works.
Usually by the time you discover them they have already bored holes in your wood. If you find them like this, just simply go out at night and put some silicone caulk up in the hole. I did this for a few years and eliminated the bees. I have even seen them a few years later come back and chew the caulk out of the hole. Just keep caulking them in. Your dollar stores sell a cheap little tube of caulk that only cost like a dollar or two. . Some people have said to use sprays and hey it's your choice, but you are still left with the empty hole. If you caulk the little bastards in the hole when it is Pitch Black outside at night, you get rid of the bee and you get rid of the hole at the same time
I can tell you as a painting contractor I have personally treated the cavities and filled the holes with Rock Hard and they still borrow through it, amazing.
Right, I’ve used three different types of putty, caulk etc I finally got silicone flex shot and plugged holes and put a wood trap from Lowe’s out. It’s worked so far
In rural areas, they can do significant structural damage to pole barns. They must be stopped every year. There are many ways to kill them each year, fill in the holes, and cover their preferred boring area with sheet metal or hard plastic. I leave some dead trees standing in my woods as an alternative so they go to the dead trees rather than my pole barn.
If you want to protect it before the carpenter bees nest into it. Treat the wood with a borate. Borathor or Bora care are good products. They are a boric acid based product that gets great penetration into the wood and protects it from wood destroying Invaders
These bees are the bane of my existence. I’m currently sitting on my porch swing watching them patrol my front porch/yard. Hoping to implement these suggestions this fall/winter. Thanks for uploading!!
Try a Badminton Racket while sitting, good practice also. I have read that only the queen can sting even though the workers try to intimidate you by fake attacks. Then take the tips from this video. Best regards.
I had a lot of them around my garage and carport. So I decided I was simply going to kill them all. Yep badminton racquet. Took a couple months but eventually there weren't any around. What is interesting is that for the next year or two, still didn't have any around. Then they eventually rediscovered my garage...
To plug holes you can use 3/8" wood dowels. Also if you don't want to use a pesticide you can use WD-40 in holes to kill bees. Then use delta dust or even baby powder powder into holes. The powder works on Bees returning to holes. It actually smothers them and they can't breath. Bees will come back every year to holes unless you treat them. And yes if woodpeckers find them they will peck out the tunnels and ruin your wood.
Had to replace fascia board all way around my house. They love cedar! This spring first in many years that I haven’t had bees. WD40 works well. I never filled the holes though hence the replacement. I’ll be more on top of it before they return.
@@GrabOnede I sprayed directly into holes..they can burrow long distances and you can hear the buzzing. After a minute or so they fall out of holes and if not dead when they fall out they certainly are once I get to them.
Thanks for the inputs and I enjoyed the comments as well. I had 2 pairs of the carpenter bees last year and it looks like 1 pair so far this year - western NY. I squirted some WD 40 in the 2 nests and within a minute one of them fell out on the floor dead. The other one flew out and spent a few minutes looking for the nest but stayed away from the WD 40 holes. I gave her another shot of the WD 40 and that did her in.
We tried the foam method last fall, and filled the holes with wood dough to make it cosmetically appealing. It didn’t work. This spring they are back at it again, and some of them just chewed right through the wood dough fillets we did last fall. We are now looking into alternative methods.
We plugged up the hole with a metal bolt. They just drilled another out hole under it. We will get more aggressive! Right now I think we've got the female since it was the one doing the drilling. I'm watching for new ones.
Sometimes the carpenter bees are only half the problem. Woodpeckers coming around sounding on the wood to find the galleries and then ripping it open to get to the carpenter bee larvae to feed on.
I have this....bees and woodpeckers..one huge woodpecker with a brite red head and a few smaller ones.....I was thinking about shooting em...but have'nt got to it...
I had that on my deck a couple of years ago. The bees were bad enough, but the woodpeckers destroyed 2 4x4 posts going after them. I check for bees regularly now.
@@bencool8239 I've read if you hang an old CD near where the woodpeckers are pecking they will leave. Apparently the motion and the light reflecting off the disc disturbs them.
Allowing the larvae chamber to mature will attract various of species of woodpecker. The real damage happens at this point. It's extremely important to disrupts the cycle before Fall time.
lol, it's amazing how they sound out a perfectly round hole with the beating of their wings and drill, pretty wild. I treated for them with Timbor for awhile and it really didn't work very well, this treatment seems more labor intense but way more effective,,
I just used a can of wasp repellant and quickly sprayed the entire area from a distance one or two days before they always arrived (ALWAYS May 29 or 30 where I lived). Problem solved quickly for about $3.00!
go to home improvement store and buy a carpenter bee trap. It will work and it REALLY will work wonders as the new wood used in it’s construction ages. Trapped bees can either be relocated or left to perish in the trap.
My two cents. I use a homemade carpenter bee trap in conjunction with filling any holes with caulking. Latex or oil based, makes no difference. I live in a normal size house that has a front deck the carpenter bees and wasp/hornets seem to just love making their homes there. In my homemade carpenter bee trap I usually catch about twelve to thirteen bees every spring. In addition, there are about two to three carpenter bees that don't go for the trap and start drilling holes in my deck. For those, I make note of where they are and either two hours after the sun has set or early in the morning before it even starts to get light, I go out there with a caulking gun, rubber gloves, and a headlight on my head and start filling the hole until it's full and starts squirting out the sides. I smooth it over with a putty knife, wipe it down with a damp paper towel, and repeat for as many holes as there are. For wasp/hornets nests. While still light out I make note of where they are. Next I wait till about two hours after the sun has set, go out there armed with a hand held flashlight in one hand and wasp spray in the other hand. Find the nest, spray it, and leave the area. Next I check on it the next morning. Usually there is no activity or residence. I Scrap the nest off the wood and then stomp on what is left. Done. I've never had to do a large wasp, hornet, or yellow jacket nest. However if did come up against one of those, I would have to hire a professional and let him handle it. A lot can go seriously wrong, even if you know what you are doing.
Thanks as this is useful. If you know, will you help me? My question is what is the purpose of filling the holes? Would just spraying a carpenter bee killing solution work just as well?
@@thepodunkwarrior8591 I suppose if you had a professional carpenter bee killing solution that was specifically designed and formulate, and had a proven track record to effectively kill carpenter bees, that would work. I am just a regular guy and not a professional bee exterminator. If there is such a "killing solution" on the market, I am not aware of it. I did try spraying the actual bee one time when I discovered it starting the hole. I covered the bee till it was dripping in "Raid For Flying Insects". It fell on my deck, flew away, and then came back hours later to the same hole and continued destroying my deck. Filling the holes with calking is an idea I came up with. It fills the hole so no other carpenter bee will take over the hole. The calking stops life giving air from getting into the hole where the bee and his family have take up residency. In addition, the calking is sticky and when the bee tries get out it only gets entangled in the thick paste. I've been doing it that way for years and it's worked every time. If I could just find a way to keep them from coming every year, that would be the real solution.
@@im1who84u I understand part of what you said but I don't understand another part of what you said so there seems to be clear miscommunication between us. Usually, people seem to get offended and berate me at this point so I'll ask please don't get overboard and try to take what I say with a grain of salt. You said you're not aware of a "bee killing solution" on the market. Then you said filling the holes with caulk, and I quote, "stops life giving air from getting into the hole where the bee and his family have take up residency. In addition, the calking is sticky and when the bee tries get out it only gets entangled in the thick paste". Bro, if that is not a "killing solution" then I don't know what is! All that aside, the information you presented on raid and caulking is the best information I've received yet. It sounds as if you're saying "don't use insecticide on carpenter bee nests because it's a waste of time, effort and money. Just caulk in their entrance way because they'll die and/or go somewhere else". Am I understanding you correctly?
I press a water hose up to the hole and let it fill build a good amount of pressure then move the hose, those suckers go flying out and get quickly disposed of with a putty knife. great fun
Thank you for the info. I'd love a link to the foam you used, here in NY state they're killing my barn and there is little to buy locally to do this. Is this like a foam insulation or a foam pesticide that dries and dissipates?
Here in California, you sometimes get ground wasps moving into gopher holes. One day my old boss came into work all stung up, he was a Dutchman and was pissed off! He had no idea what to do, I told him to get a gas powered lawn mower, fire it up on the other side of the house and get her going full blast and run it around to the hole and stick it over it! He gave me this poisonous look and took off. Back an hour later and said " I killed them ALL !!"
Virginia had hornets and wasps that make nests in the ground as well. Carpenter Bees that everyone is talking about will not sting or hurt you, so please don't kill them as they are pollinators. They will buzz around you but they are just curious.
They are terribly damaging. We found in our 17 year battle the only things that work are Hot Shot (in the holes and if there's larve, a few days later it will fall out), bee traps and bad Mitten rackets. We keep count of who in the family gets the most. We're not evil, just inundated with them. We get at least 300 with rackets in a month, three quarts in traps and another 100 in the sprayed holes. Then fill in the holes. They tend to go for the good painted wood not the rotting wood, cut firewood or logs (soft and hardwood) to be cut.
I feel empowered. They are quite efficient, but this new house presented a new problem with carpenter bees. I have all of the supplies and will get to work. Very good video.
I'd rather try the foam or WD-40, one of the options where you have more product to work with. Not that it's not a great idea, and maybe you could add it as just a barrier to keep your liquid blocker goo in. But I don't have much and I'm sure the store is out of stock right now during covid19!
Borax dust is the way to go, using a Getz duster, also he didn't mention the carpenter bees go for unpainted wood, so he should recommend to the customer to pressure wash and paint the structure. I worked for a pest control company for 13 years.
I sprayed Kleen Free Naturally enzyme solution into their holes. Immediately bees fell out onto the ground, where they were promptly stomped. I kept spraying every few days. After about a week, my dog alerted me to their larvae, which had crawled and were writhing on the ground and I put them out of their misery. Totally non toxic. Bees gone.
I have been fighting these things for years on my deck, plugged holes doesn't work, if you plug a hole while there are larva in the hole they will eat their way out from another direction. I have found a qtip bent in two and soaked in undiluted insecticide shoved in the hole will prevent further invasion int that hole. The best solution it to trap the bees before they drill into the wood. I suspect the bees come back to the same holes year after year, if you break the cycle every year you will have less bees the next year. When I made my first traps I had them full of bees and still had drilling. Every year I had less bees in my traps to the point I catch 25 or 30 a year now and have no drilling at all.
Have you tried getting a bird feeder? Blue Jays, Sparrows, Blackbirds and Mockingbirds (or most corvids for that matter) all love to eat these winged insects; and they're lovely to look at. But having the birds routinely keep the bee's population in check also means they will naturally, over time deter more bees from setting in. Alternatively, you could plant mushrooms (saprospores), as their spores are naturally toxic to bees when they germinate; you can also eat the mushrooms.
I use a catch box. Looks like a little bird house. A entrance on each side and a Mason jar attached to the bottom with an entrance hole. I hang near , high and East side where they show the most. Once they crawl into the hole of the little pine house. They fall to the bottom and sadly die....lol! 👋👍😷🇺🇸💉🎯🍀
@@cinnamongmc5430 Must be because of the ceiling wood. They love soft, pine, cedar. Surround the holes with hanging catch boxes. I stain mine with tea, to approximate the color of the logs on my home.They seem to like warm and sun light. I catch 10x more on the east side as opposed to the west side, which is shaded .
I watched your video. Thank you for the information and sharing. However, when I tried to show my husband he asked a question that once you plug up the holes they have already made as you show in the video what prevents them from making new ones?
At the end you said they winter in the nest. So what happens if I spray this and putty over the holes now? Will it kill them or will they just drill new holes to get out in April?
Getting a late start but it's been raining so much. When I notice the bees out, in the evening, I puff Delta Dust into the existing holes on my fascia boards when the bees are in the galleries. I'll also tie up the DIY traps Ito the soffits. A racket and a few swings will clear any of those mfers flying around my house. Going to look into a preventative spray and start earlier next year.
These bees only use the hole they made to exit. In the cool of the evening when the bees have gone in for the night, plug the holes with latex caulk, dry wall compound, spackle or similar. They won’t back out of the hole and the larvae will not make it either. Or.....paint your wood. They won’t drill through latex paint, but they don’t seem to mind oil based stain. I wanted a stained deck, so I mixed up a brown latex color close to stain and painted the under sides of all the lumber of the perimeter of my deck. I now have a manageable bee issue where in the past it was all out war on them each spring.
Carpenter Bees make zig-zag tunnels of varying lengths, as a pest control tech, I use a coat hanger to probe the hole to navigate the bends/zigs-zags in the carpenter bee tunnels. Some tunnels are 8"-10" inches in depth, after bending the coat hangar to get into the tunnels all the way, you can hear them buzzing inside the wood, when you pull out the coat hangar and its is covered with pollen you know that you have reached the end of the tunnel. Then I take my Exacticide machine and treat the tunnel with Alpine dust, the dust coats the entire tunnel, the bees will come out covered in dust and the tunnel will be uninhabitable for as long as no moisture gets in it. Then prevent treatment of the area with Talstar or Tempo SC Ultra. Plugging the holes is up to the home owner.
To clarify, we shouldn’t be applying the wood putty right away after using the foam correct? We should wait maybe overnight to allow time for it to expand and kill the bees causing them to drop out? Then apply wood putty? Want to understand the proper timeline
My treated wood porch was getting destroyed. I built some wooden traps. The bees climb in, get into the bottle and can't get out. No chemicals at all. I slayed dozens of them, and now they are under control..
I reached out to a beekeeper because I know bees are important to the ecosystem but the moment he told me there is no saving them and extermination is the only way. They WILL be GONE.
Such a nice and informative video.The most important step is to identify the nesting area. Wood bees will build their nests in rotting wood, so finding and removing the nest is the key to getting rid of them.How Long Do Carrots Take To Grow#1 Best Step By Step Guide
I have confirmed that I have carpenter bees behind a retaining wall leading down into a basement apartment entrance. I cannot, however, see the chambers. How do I treat/prevent if I can't plug the holes?
As a fellow tradesman I respect them but they always chill directly in front of my front door (have cedar shakes on the house). Never want to kill them and I know they only act aggressive.
I've been afraid of amber bees since I was a kid, but I met them recently and I'm raising them now. They're a lot more gentle than I thought. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vUDEDtCljgg.html
Stuff the holes with Steel wool so they can’t reuse holes. SOS pads will work to for bee holes in wood. Then put wood filler over holes. They can’t drill hole out again if it is stuffed with steel wool"
@Jack Coleman no kill master is an oil base pesticide. It repels all bees. Did inlaw house was log cabin had 100s of carpenter bees. After just treating the sofits. No bees at all.
Take a brown paper bag, fill it with newspaper so it looks like a ball. Hang this in the area you’ve seen the bees. The bees will think it’s a wasp nest & vacate the area because wasps kill them. Really, it works.
Not PETA friendly...but I like to get an old tennis racket out, and send them for a little ride. If you swing fast enough, it will slice and dice them. Good shoulder workout!
The carpenter bees in my home have entered from underneath open areas in my aluminum siding and I am unable to access the holes without removing the siding. How can I treat this area without removing the siding?
Take a brown paper bag... fill it with newspaper or plastic shopping bags. Shape it like a hornet's nest and hang it under your deck of under the eve of your house. I did this last week... haven't seen a carpenter bee or a hornet around my deck since.