I have a friend with a pole barn in her back yard. The ovehang posts are made of treated 6X6’s. These posts are then boxed in by 1X’s made of pine and stained to match the exterior trim. Carpenter bees have created havoc on the treated 1X’s. Not just holes but a real dinner of the wood. I am not sure if the insects are correctly bees or whasps. Either/or they are hungry. My question is two fold:
1. Can the ‘bees’ also do damage to the treated 6X6 posts under the trim work?
2. What in the world do you do to get the insects to find a new home?
Any advice or instructions would be greatly appreciated. I live in Michigan and the pole barn has been in existance for @10 years.
Mike
Replies
CARPENTER BEE MANAGEMENT
Perhaps the information at the link below will be of some assistance to you.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7417.html
Good Luck!
There are carpenter bee traps that are very effective. Your friend needs to put a bunch of them up before they make swiss cheese of his barn. And they will.
Getting rid of carpenter bees
Your friends have carpenter bees and they will eat the barn. You don't want to find a new home because they always come back to their old home first. Living in Michigan, here is a fact sheet from your area:
http://www.pestid.msu.edu/InsectsArthropods/CarpenterbeesXylocopaandCeratinaspecies/tabid/227/Default.aspx
But, the picture of the carpenter bee looks a little small on their webpage. When the Eastern Carp. bee gets big - they are huge!! I live in Southern Ohio and have been at war with them for years but I've never seen them as huge as they are this year due to the weather!! Every year I look to see if there is any new info on their life cycle but nothing is spot on. Here, they appear on the first warm spring day which is usually the 3rd or 4th week of March but this year they were out earlier. The websites all indicate they come out in April or May but they always are out here in March. You don't see them on rainy days but they are busy at work on your wood. They are very active for 2 to 4 weeks and then for weeks I don't see them out much. Then, the new bees are out later in the summer. This year, they seem mixed up due to the weather.
Check out youtube for some good videos including how to make, or buy, carpenter bee traps. Make sure they are put up in early March and leave them up. I don't have the inclination to make my own but bought them 4 for $28 + S/H on ebay.
I have a log home and painted last summer using a bee repleant mixed with the paint. The bees snacked on the wood just as much as every - or more.
I treat the holes with insecticide dusts purchased from licensed exterminators over the internet. You can't go to your local store and buy the most effective products. Dusts last longer than sprays. You need to purchase dusters from them also because the tips are small enough to get into the holes. The most effective thing is to use a small, flexible tube or wire and push it as far into the hole as possible to break through the pulp walls the queen puts inbetween the larvae (see Michigan fact sheet picture).
I find WD-40 works put into the holes works incredibly well but the bees like to get in back of the gutters so I dust every 30 days behind my gutters to stop new holes.
To plug the holes, do an internet search and you will find different methods like putting in bits of steel wool, aluminum foil, etc. followed by cork, wood putty, or caulk.
In the fall, the young bees go back into the holes for the winter so you need to keep looking for new damage.
On youtube, there is a video of Brian's Bee Butter. I just ordered some today to try as the video has the bees falling out of the holes. I figured it's worth a try.
With persistence, it is possible to get the bees under control. Good luck.
Carpenter bees are a large problem in Virginia also. My approach is simple, plug new holes with silicone caulk, they'll chew through latex caulk. Ideally when the bee has entered the hole, give it a dab of silicone: no more activity, ever. To prevent the problem, use harder wood. They like softer woods and will go elsewhere to nest if you don't provide it. Oak heartwood's pretty good, hickories and black locust are never attacked. Nor is heart pine, but that's pretty expensive. If you metal-clad your trim that'll solve the problem also. Copper works great.
Good luck getting rid of the bees, they're everywhere here. Best I've found is to make the building inhospitable so they go elsewhere. Offering pine or western red cedar is putting out the welcome mat.
Around here it's common for folks to practice their tennis or badminton swings. Doesn't make a large dent in the bee population but it's satisfying to smack one. I prefer practice with a BB gun, though I don't see many any more..