I installed fj redwood fascia board on my house, primed with oil primer and finished with two coats of latex. Its very rot resistant but the carpenter bees love it! Anyone have any suggestions for a treatment to dissuade the little buggers from eating my home into Swiss cheese? I can’t spend all summer outside killing them.
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I investigated a little a couple years back for a job.
Unfortunately I found no clear cut defined processes that guarenteed success.
Short of a covering with a surfacing material like metal or what have you, I did find some promising comments about painting with a borax solution from some.
I did call Borax company and they would not say yay or nay either way which I figured was a disclaimer to protect themselves.
I have the same situation from carpenter bees on some cedar coming up this spring and will be trying the borax solution.
'Course you could get creative as a friend of mine did and brew up some ice tea and sit in the shade with a pellet gun.
LOL!!
I actually used my fly fishing rod and flicked the little buggers out of the air. Tied a 2 inch piece of line on the last 1 inch of the main line. Now had a 3-pointed end. I stopped counting after the first 3 dozen K.I.A.'s. Used wasp killer sprayed directly into the holes at dusk. That's when they are home. They sputter out the holes and die. Two days of that , then I foam-in-a-can'd the holes.
They can lie dormant over winter and then start up again. You must fill the holes cause old holes are reused by new breeds that wander over from your neighbors.
Good luck with the borax preventive measures.
Walk Good
Phil
Your last option sounds the best, but who really has the time?
The wild thing is, I plugged all the old holes from last year with latex caulk, and now the bees have returned and are excavating the caulk from the old holes!!! I guess chewing latex is easier on the old choppers than redwood.
Keith
Are the C Bees just eating the white part of the Redwood only? I've never seen anything eat the red part.
carpenter bees will eat any wood, painted or unpainted.. you have to kill the colony..
try dusting the holes with diazanon.. or painting them with Bora-care ( $125/ gal )
or buy a bee bomb that will shoot 25' and spray the holes every time you find one..
left unattended , they will eventually make swiss cheese out of your redwoodMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore