Bees that want to bore holes in my carport beams

[Dennis M]

Yeah the same thing occurred to me after I began pondering the motor oil solution. My carport roof is sheet metal with a brown surface on top and it can get pretty hot in the summer.

[Shaun Eli]

Don't just fill the holes with caulk or wood. They'll just eat their way out somewhere else and you get another hole. Sorry but you have to kill them.

I've found that spraying wasp kill spray on the ends of the wood keep them from coming back.

[keith]

But that won't kill the eggs and they *will* be back. Dust in the spring (and late summer if you're paranoid) and fill the holes in the fall. Filled holes won't be an attraction for any interlopers next year.

[h]

Just spray with hairspray and they'll die. The larvae won't hatch, or die without the adults (never seen the babies come out after a hairspray kill months before). The filling up is just cosmetic. They'll come back or not, but can be killed instantly with the hairspray. I've killed about 15 just this week. I've been watching their favorite spot and every time I see one, I nuke it. It rained today, so it's a new start tomorrow!

[Dennis M]

If this is true I'm curious as to why they've never bothered a wooden railing I have on my front porch which very close by. It was constructed in

2006 and I gave it a primer and two coats of some good Sherwin-Williams 25-yr. paint, brown in color, a short time afterward.

[h]

Umm, like I said, they ate through wood with both latex paint and oil base stain/primer/everything else. I've lived in the house for 25 years and they will eat though anything.

[dpb]

Dennis M wrote: ...

Generally they pick a spot that is also somewhat protected from weather and I'd guess the railing is much more open.

Also, they prefer beams/rafters/larger structural pieces and some species seem more attractive as well. I've heard it said there are other possible factors such as vibrations/sound/etc. that attract/repel as well altho I don't know that it is fact/proven to be so.

Do know local REA co-op had heck of a time w/ pileated woodpeckers attacking certain poles because the wires set up vibrations that they read as dinner. Modifications of mounting spars eventually after much effort reduced the problems significantly. Them suckers would top a pole completely...

[Marina]

"h" wrote in news:hrpfk2$tm4$ [e-mail]:

I tried spraying carpenter bees, but they are too fast. As soon as I hold up my arm to spray, zooooom! They fly away at super speed. Guess I'll have to treat the holes they bore into.

[Jim Elbrecht]

Don't know-- but I have a bow window and they like just one section of the fascia. It's been 10 years- and about half of them have included carpenter bee damage. Woodpeckers cleared them out for a couple years, but they came back to that same section last year. They never touched the two short sections of fascia, that may well have come from the same 1x6. All were primed and painted with oil base gloss paint.

Someday I'll get around to putting up plastic fascia boards.

Jim

[Oren]

LMAO!

A golfer kept losing his ball between the 1st and 2nd hole. Advice to him was to keep his legs closer together.

[krw]

Not true. The larvae have no need for adults. They'll hatch into next year's crop.

Wrong. It closes the nest so interlopers don't find an empty home that's "just right".

You'll be doing it forever if you don't treat the cause.

Goody. Make that 150 next year then 1500...

Do it right and save your house.

[tmclone]

.

Umm, I never have to kill them after the first two weeks. It's always between 30-50, and only in the early Spring, and always in a different part of the property. To make it simple for you, it's not like the larvae ever hatch and make it out of the building. These are new bees every year.

[krw]

Of course you only see the bees in the early Spring. That's when they're bees. They hatch in August and winter over in their larval state. In the spring they emerge as bees, and do their thing. If you don't do the job right you'll have them back every year. ...and yes, if not treated properly, they certainly *do* make it out of the building - the next spring. Since they're territorial, you may get a few interlopers every year, but they'll be few. Do the job right.

[h]

Umm, no. There are never any NEW holes in any buildings - I kill off the bees as soon as I see them hovering around looking for a place to bore in. I haven't had any wood damage or holes to patch in more than 10 years, since I started using hairspray to kill them. Yeah, you have to be very proactive and spray the bastards IMMEDIATELY, but you just aren't understanding what I'm saying about spraying them. Or you just don't get it. Or you just don't believe it. Whatever.

[krw]

No, I don't believe you. If you have bees, you have holes. That's the way nature works.

[Jay-T]

Here's a link with some info:

.

This company is in New Jersey (USA), so a lot of the information is more specific to that area.

[Tony]

Seems that when I first moved to TN I would seldom see pileated woodpeckers. I never knew woodpeckers that big existed before. (over a foot head to tail) Woody the Woodpecker was modeled after them.