How To Stop Carpenter Bees - And The Damage They Cause!

Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello and welcome everybody to Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I am your host, Jim Competti with my wife Mary Competti and Mary today
talking about carpenter bees, which we've had a lot of history with. Yeah,
these little things have been give me fits lately. I'll tell you We've
had them at our old farm. We've had some epic battles everywhere. And
now that we built our new farm, even though we have metal siding stone
below, we have some wood corbels and guess who's coming calling, right,
Carpenter bees can be really difficult to deal with him. We're going to talk
about them in length, about how to handle them and why you don't just
want to kill them, you know, just spray them and secticides. You
want you want some other ways to be able to keep them around, but
not get them into your woodwork, right, because they can be very destructive.
And if we can, you know, deter them from drilling into the
wood structures on your house, barns, pergolas, sheds, you know that's
a great thing to have, but you know, they do really cause havoc.
They do, but they're also one of the best pollinators around. So
that's what we're going to try to work with today. But we'll get into
today's topic and just a minute, but as always, we want to take
a moment to remind everyone that you can always reach us vias email at the
farm at Owgarden dot com. We love your questions, we love your thoughts
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to get all of our latest podcasts, and of course always check out our
Old World Garden YouTube channel as well. I think we'll start off today's topic,
Mary with our question of the Week. We've been doing this a little
bit more lately because these questions are so poignant to what we're talking about,
and honestly, I could probably read thirty to fifty of these from our inbox
in just the last week. Because it's springtime and carpenter bees are very active.
So why don't you go ahead with the question of the week and then
we'll get into the topic right our email has been blooming investing at the seams
at this point, but carpenter bees are at the head of the topic.
So this question of the Week comes from Ronnie Davis from Covington, Kentucky.
Too far from us, not too far. I just put up a beautiful
wood garden fence last year and the carpenter bees are destroying it the spring.
It's made from rough song pine and I'm letting it aged naturally, but they
are drilling holes all over it. Well, painting help it? Is there
something I can spray on it? Please help? I feel you're painting,
Ronnie. You know, it is really tough to watch something that you have
just built or you have there and see these carpenter bees coming in droves and
taking it out. So we're going to cover a lot for you, Ronnie
in today's podcast and hopefully give you a few great solutions that will work to
say that beautiful fence. But let's start by covering why carpenter bees actually can
be beneficial for gardeners, and then we'll get into answering his question over the
course of this post and why it's best not to just start spraying with them
insecticides. So let's start with what a carpenter bee actually is married, you
know, you know good, there's some good news about carbon bees. I
know you said they're they're tough, and they are. They drive me nuts
too, but they are actually a major pollinator, right, absolutely, And
if you just try to kill them off with a sex side and spray,
you're killing off the pollinators that are actually pollinating your flowers, your vegetable garden.
So you really don't want to do that, but I understand the pain.
Yeah, And it's not just the carpenter bees. I mean, they
are incredible pollinators, but you also when you spray those insecticides, you're killing
honey bees, you're killing butterflies, you can kill anything comes in contact with
So it's not always the best answer. But a carpenter bee is a little
different than other bees. So let's kind of talk about that and then we'll
work our way into how to deter them and also how to control them and
maybe keep your keep your woodwork safe. Right, and a carbon bee,
you know, you can really determine a carpenter bee versus a bumblebee when you
feel the wood shavings coming down on you while you're grilling, So the other
night. You know, we were stating at the grill and down by our
barn and the wood shavings started coming down on me. I looked up at
the carboner bees drilling. But they resemble bumblebees very similar. Yeah, there
is a few key differences, but you're absolutely right. A lot of people
confuse them with bumblebees. So here's the difference. Carpenter bees do not have
any hair on their stomach. Now for most people, they're like, yeah,
I don't want to get but they don't, so they're a little bit
different. They're gonna have that smooth, no no hair stomach. And the
worker bumble and the honey bees and the queen bees like and normal bees when
we talk about they all have stingers where the male bee carpenter bee does not,
and they will not sting you. And here's the thing about the male
bees. They are they're the protectors. So when you go around wood and
everybody knows carpenter bees knows exactly what I'm talking about, you will get dive
bombed by the bees and they'll come right at your head. Those are the
male bees. They're protecting the nest. But the funny thing is, it's
like they're stating weapons. Yes, that's right. They really can't sting you.
So what about the females, Well, they can sting you. They
have stingers, and unlike the honeybee or other they do not die when they
sting you. But they are very it is very slow. They do not
want to sting anybody. Yeah, it's very rare. They're working on drilling
out um You know when you talk about carboner bees, and I know I'm
gonna hear it now because you know, it's it's the women that they're doing
all the work. So they are drilling out the hole, they're laying the
larvae. The male bee is checking out and trying to protector. He is
the protector, So don't be so nervous around them. They're The likelihood of
getting stung by a carbon to bee is very very minimal compared to other wasps
and bees um as. Again, the female have stingers, but they're simply
not aggressive. U. The third difference is that and this is the big
difference, is that bumblebees and you know, live in the ground and they
live in calling where carpenter bees they shelter by themselves and they're in their immediate
family unit we just talked about it, and unfortunately, those shelters aren't in
the ground. They're in the wood, right, And when you visually look
at them, they look very similar. They're big, they're fat, they're
round, they have black on both ends, and they have a yellow stripe
in the middle. So you may be looking at a bumblebee or you may
be looking at a carpenter bee. And again I'm not getting close enough to
look at the hair on their stomach, that's right, but you can tell
about where they live well, and you can tell also if they're drilling into
your wood, they're probably not bumblebees. They're gonna be carpenter bees. So
let's talk about that damage. I mean, Mary just talked about it last
night. We were sitting down in a couple of chairs underneath the barn and
we have some wood rafters in there, and all of a sudden, there
was just this fine sawdust coming down and you look up and I mean,
they're amazing that. The word carpenter is great because they drill perfect holes.
They're amazing at it looks like it looks like a drill drill bit did it,
and they will And the only problem is that adult bees you know,
once they drill that it's not a one time thing. So they are most
active in April through May and June. This is when they're coming out and
they're coming out of where their hibernation was and they're mating. And once they
mate, what do they do. They're looking to lay that larva and so
the female's going to dig new holes or she's going to take an existing hole
and make it a bigger condo. But this is what you're seeing right now
is all of this activity. So over the winter, the ones that survive
they store a limited amount of pollen and food to survive, and then the
bees that survive the winter emerge now up until about June or July, and
they feed on the nectar of flowers. This is where it comes in handy.
I mean, they're big pollinators. They are they pollinate your flowers,
your vegetable plants. You know, they have a lot of benefits to them,
but they also can cause a lot of damage if you have a lot
of wood in your home. Yeah, the damage is that they're building those
new condos and the tunnels to lay the larvae for the next generation. So
they may reuse an existing gallery of holes or they may excavate new and that's
what they were doing last night down on our brun and they were trying to
find new holes. So the time period that you've got to try to repel
them is somewhat short when you really think of summer. Almost all the males
they die off by July. There is some limited action after that, but
most of the hole drilling and everything that's going on right now is going to
happen for this month and next month, and then they're going to hatch out
and they're they're gonna stay and lay and wait until next year. And I
think a big misconception is that if you look at your wood and you see
one single hole, it may not be just one single hole, because,
like you said, they have a whole condos system. So they will drill
a hole and then they'll turn to the right or the left and they'll continue
to drill holes so that way they can lay their larva and all those extra
places are more protected. Yeah, old fence posts are really known for this.
You can just see the weevil and then what's really bad is if you
get those insects in there and then the woodpeckers come to get those insects,
they can just decimate it. So it's definitely not something you want to deal
with and you want to get it, so it's best not to spray.
I mean, it really does kill a lot of beneficial insects in the process,
but there are some good deterrence that worked well, and you know,
I mean, that's what's really important. All right, let's take a quick
break, Mary, and we'll be right back after this. You know,
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look Bowl and Branch. We certainly love them. So, Mary, let's
talk about some of the ways that are really good in deterring. We have
a lot of experience with this over our old farm and our new farm.
We have tried several different things. Yeah, and I have to tell you
number one, more than anything else, fresh stain or paint is wonderful for
deterring. Carpenter bees right, if you have clear would you want to seal
it. But we have better luck with high gloss and high stains on our
wood. Yeah, we do. High glass stains and high glass paints seem
to make carbonbies not want to deal with it. We've had all of our
woodwork in a semi gloss that's around it and they just don't touch it.
And the same thing with a stain. There are some some flat stains that
we've noticed that if, especially with this day age, a year or two,
they'll start to come back. But that is the first thing. If
you have natural wood and you want to keep it natural, at least get
a stealer on that. It's going to prevent some There will still be some
attacks. It's not full proof, but I can tell you that wood that
we've stained seems to be way better off than unseen wood. Absolutely. And
spreading with oils that the carbonrees hate also works well. I think this is
the big one here. So people always ask us, well, what can
I do to really keep them off? So there are three big oils that
really work well. Almond oil, citrus oil, and peppermint oil. And
we're talking about essential oils here. And you know what you do is basically
take a spray bottle, the little hand pump spray bottles, fill it with
water and then what I think we tend to twelve drops, tend to twelve
drops of your oil choice. For us, I think centrus oils really worked
well. It's something we use a lot. We use peppermint oil to tur
spiders and the other other pests as well. Absolutely, so what you want
to do is basically go out and you want to spray that surface. And
you know, here's the biggest thing where people may struggle with the turrants as
far as the oils, it's not a one time thing. I mean again,
these guys are going to be active. Carpeonrbies are gonna be active for
about a month and a half to two months. You have to go out
and spray that. I mean for us, it's usually what two three days
every just depends on how much it rains, Yeah, and then keeping it
fresh. So you're right, if we get a hard rain, we'll put
it on the very next day. Again, rain or heavy dew. You
know, you really have to make sure that the peppermint oil or such a
soil or almond oil is really prevalent and not diluted from rainer or do.
Yeah, and it does work, I'm telling you, if you stay diligent
with this, it really does work and they'll get there. So that's one
great way to deter them. And you know, deterring such a nice thing
because you're keeping the bees still. There are so many natural habitats. If
they find old trees or old wood, and you know, in a nearby
they can stay alive and they're still gonna help with that pollinating. You just
want to keep them away from your home and your structures. Right now,
we've tried other methods as well, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't,
that's right. So we'll go to number two, which is fake waspnest.
So now you have to understand that carpenter bees do not like hornet nest
wasp nest because they feed on the larva of when they lay it, they'll
they'll actually rob the nest of this. So quite often when they see those
big paper wasp nests, they will not try to drill. Right there,
now, it has to be realistic. And I'm Arry's laughing right now because
there are some great eight and we'll put links on the podcast. Article for
this. But there are some great fake wasp nest out there that you can
put in hornet's nest that you can hang, um, if you're fortunate enough.
We had a friend of ours a few years back that sent us a
dead hornet's nest, do you remember that? And we put that up and
finally finally disintegrated. But when we put that up and hung it in the
area underneath our leaves, perfectly no carpenter be wanted to go there at all.
So those have as much success when I tried the paper bag track.
Well. So paper bags are said to work to act like a wasp nest.
So we're talking about the grocery stores, like the old ones you used
to cover your books with when you go to the grocery store, but you
really should to make it effective. You want to kind of like blow up
a balloon and you want to kind of like almost paper machee over that.
So it's round. Um. I came home one day and I see this.
I see a basically a paper bag hanging from one of our beams,
and I asked Mary, I said what, because I'm going to try this
for the carpenter be And I said why, I think it has to be
round. We kind of laughed about it and semi round. And when I
stood there talking to a carbonrby came up and tried to drill into the bags.
Okay, so didn't drill in tor wood, but it worked in the
area that it was directly in. But you know, as a long beam,
so just kind of moved down the way it did. So the fake
boss. Honestly, if there, if there are authentic enough, they will
really work to help. And then this is a big one. We just
if you don't mind wind chimes, So carbonr bees do not like noise.
We've played our speakers before. Noise and vibration, yeah, and it will
work and keep them away. Wind chimes do a nice job of it if
you can handle wind chimes. I personally am not a big wind chime guy.
I don't think you are like the wood yeah exactly. But a radio
will work for a while if you have a really bad area, play some
music. The vibrations they do not like. But here's the big thing.
We talked about this all the time. Once you do have some damage,
this is where I think most people don't go that next step to prevent more
damage. So remember that when they're drilling the hole, they're not just drilling
a hole to eat the wood. They're not eating the wood at all.
They're drilling they're making a home to lay the larva for the next generation.
And you have got to eliminate that larva. We talk about, you know,
keeping things alive and keeping but if you don't take that larva out,
it's going to hatch and they're going to make that whole bigger for the next
year's family. So you got to get in there and knock it out.
And then most important, you got to fill it right. And it's all
about balance. You know, we want to keep the bees alive for the
pollination, but you also can't just sacrifice your home and your barns, porches
patios to let the carbon to be larva survive. Yeah, we're gonna get
to that to second because you can give them an alternate home, which is
what which is a really good way to do it. But what you want
to do when you do have damage and you see the holes and you think
there might be larva in there, if you can't get it out, you
want to spray those holes with vinegar and water. It's a fifty fifty percent
mix, and it's we're just talking about store about we're not talking about horticulture.
Just five percent regular traditional vinegar. You know, if you want to
smell like apple cider or great, get the apple cider. If you want
the white vinegar, that's fine too, But just the five percent version makes
it half water half vinegar. And you spray it in there and you're gonna
kill that larva and most importantly, they're not going to make that whole bigger
and they're not going to come back. But you want to fill it then
to make sure that they don't have an easy entrance to the home next year,
right exactly. And you know, the whole point here is is that
you spray it first, then you fill the hole with wood filler or cocking
or whatever it takes to make sure that it's covered. That's right. So
okay, So we've talked about repelling them, so there are some other options.
And this is when we tried a few years ago. It's kind of
neat. So you have to understand that carpenter bees are they have a great
memory. They're gonna come back, They're going to come back to the same
area. They're gonna stay there. They're gonna live there through the winter,
and they're gonna go back and make their home again. So if you can
give them a home that they like that's not your home, not your wood
beams on your house, or they're going to be much better and they're going
to still stay around. So there are a lot and again we'll put a
link on the article on the podcast on Simple Gardenlife dot com for this,
but there are mason bee homes that you can actually if you have a lot
of bee activity, you can hang them. The bees will usually try to
find them because they're easy to you know, the holes that don't have to
work very hard. They don't have to work very hard. And then you
can relocate them, relocate them to your woods, relocate them to the to
the edge of your property. And the good thing is is when they have
their young and they come back, they will go there. They like to
have that the possibilities for them. They're staying there. Some people get skittish
about that, but it's a great way to We talk about this all the
time, the balance of nature, keeping the balance. It's a great way
to not just kill an entire population of bees that actually have some purpose right,
just not the purpose that you want them to be wiping out your property.
And you can find them as carbon to bee houses or Mason be Home.
There are like little tubes stuck in a stuck in a stack, and
then what happens is that the bees will go into there and then then you
can transport them to another area. That's right. And if you have old
fence posts that are out of the way and they've stayed in there, let
them stay there. That's a that's another way they're going to go. Find
that as well. Untreated fence posts. I know a lot of people that
will put those up just to bring the carpenter bees that way. Um,
it's it's a lower trap, but it keeps them out. So again,
you know, when we talk about this, let's just kind of go over.
You know, carpenter bees are going to be host. You've enjoyed this
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us at the farm at next time. The best defense is being diligent,
check those areas daily, put an action pain into place. And then,
of course we talk about this, try to avoid just flat out spraying.
It just doesn't have to happen. If you don't want to, you can
you can try to, you know, spray those areas with the oils.
I think that for us has always the two most effective things for us when
we talk about this all the time, and this year, like what works
for us on our farm painting fresh paint, fresh stain and spraying with with
these essential oils. Yeah, and those are the ways if you really want
to try to do it without killing him. I know there's carpenter be traps
and there's all this, and we just try not to go down that road.
Um. But if you can try the sprays and you stay active with
them, it usually works out pretty good. It doesn't. And then you
know, if you have the essential oil sprays, your house smells great too.
Oh there you go. See it's a weather benefit. All right.
So I think we're at the end of this one. Mary, What's what's
that line you always say remember, whatever you do, find the fun and
gardening and grow something beautiful. All right, everyone, so long, we'll
talk to you next week.