One of the most annoying pests an old log home and wood barn has, is the carpenter bee. This fat dumb looking bee can easily be confused with the fuzzy bumble bee. The biggest differences between the bumble bee and the carpenter bee are their butts. Bumbles have fuzzy butts and carpenters have shiny ones. Bumbles also happily buzz around flowers and just look like they are having a great time. Carpenters are territorial and will hover in one spot and attack any insect that enters its territory. Thankfully, for as hostile as the carpenter bees are to other insects they really could care less about people or livestock.
Why are carpenter bees so bad? They destroy wood! The little buggers drill perfect little round holes in any solid wood, be it beams in the barn or logs in our home. At night I can actually hear them chewing away in the logs making new tunnels, drives me nutty! We’ve been fighting the carpenter bee battle with toxins which works amazingly well but has one big flaw; you have to find the hole! Sometimes the hole they call home is out of reach or you just can’t seem to find it which does you no good to puff nasty killing powder into it.
My husband has been doing some research on killing these annoying pests and found a guy who makes a carpenter bee trap. To be honest I thought the whole idea sounded silly especially after seeing the trap. They look like little bird houses with plastic bottles screwed into them.
Carpenter Bee Trap
The wood house has several holes drilled into it the same size as the average carpenter bee hole. As I had said, these bees are territorial and will fight one another and try to overtake each other’s dwellings. It turns out that these bees quickly locate the bee trap holes and enter to investigate, they end up falling into the plastic bottle and because they are so big and dopy they can’t fly or craw out. Tada, they are trapped.
2 Trapped Carpenter Bees
I really didn’t think they’d work but after just 15 minutes of the first trap being set out 2 of them found their way into the bottle. I’m an instant believer in these traps and set 3 other ones up in problem areas.
The creator of these traps can be found at http://www.carpenterbeesolutions.com/ He has many great videos and information about Carpenter Bees.
Hey folks,
If you want stained ready to insert plugs that will make the holes disappear after using traps/butter ask Brian for bee plugs. He can get them from a girl in GA.
I bought 10 traps and 4 tubes of the Bee Butter to kill them.
I waited until they went active again in early September and treated all the holes with the bee butter. To see the bees walk through it and almost instantly start to convulse and die was just amazing. We had been using a exterminator every spring to treat the hole but the bees just made new ones.
I was told by Carpenter Bee Solutions that I must kill the bees, destroy the larvae and fix the holes this fall and hang the traps in early spring. We just had all the bee (and woodpecker) damage fixed on our 3 year old log home and I am looking forward to having the bee traps up next year to nip this problem in the bud.
I am glad to see that the bee traps have worked so well for the OP. I am looking forward to a spring of many trapped and dead bees!
We purchased an old log cabin too that has, amongst other issues, carpenter bees. We do have an exterminator who comes out every apring to spray the logs and spray into the existing holes, but up until now, no way to prevent the carpenter bees from drilling. Thanks so much for posting this link! ~ Mona
9 Bees caught yesterday in 3 traps! Muhahahahaha!
DO you have instructions on how to construct these little traps? Or where do you purchase these little house traps? We have those bees in our porch railings and in our garage. Looks quite promising!!
9 Bees caught yesterday in 3 traps! Muhahahahaha!
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