Me vs. the carpenter bees. The score is 30 to 0.

We live in a log house, and these damn spawns of Satan try to make Swiss cheese of it each year.

I finally had enough of their shit. So over the weekend I managed to nab 30 of them using a butterfly net, and then crushed each using my boot. I’m hoping this will make some kind of difference. Fuckers.

I hate those bastards. When I’m sitting on the porch I always make sure to have my bee-bat (a piece of 1x6 that I shaped kind of like a cricket bat) handy.

You’re supposed to impale them on little skewers and set them around the house, as a dire warning to others of their kind.

Butterfly net? Cool! Gonna give it a try. I’ve read ways to chemically treat their bore holes, but never tried. We have them around the barn and they are a PIA.

Well, male carpenter bees don’t have stingers. Females do, and can sting a human, but seldom do sting; they have a reputation for being docile.

They only drill one hole a year, and they tend to drill them near the previous hole, instead of spreading out, so the damage is localized. And as Wikipedia says,

The damage they’re doing is just cosmetic. And they either can’t fight back (males) or are friendly (females). There’s not really any need to kill them at all.

They repeatedly fly very close to my face, startling me. Startle me enough and you risk being killed.

Our soffits have *dozens *of holes. And I find it difficult to contain my anger when I step out on the front porch in the morning to find a pile of sawdust under one of the porch’s horizontal support beams. :mad:

Anything that drills a hole in my house is going to die.

Does your cable installer know this?

Hmm. Looks like I’ll need a bigger net. :stuck_out_tongue:

I never remember seeing carpenter bees growing up. Now they’re everywhere. And they’re super aggressive. They go after each other with a vengeance, not to mention the poor birds!

I don’t kill them, however. They were so happy to see my annuals, that I had mercy on their little insect hearts.

I think I’d both spray my house and put some “decoy” wood out away from your place for them to drill in instead. Give 'em a desirable alternative.

Btw, that’s a neat looking place. Did you have it built?

Hell no. Log homes suck. I bought the place because I liked the land.

This is not true. I have been fighting them in a similar way to Crafter_Man, although my weapon of choice is a small-mesh fishing net with a four-foot handle. Last summer I scabbed some two-by-fours onto the existing rafters of my garage to prepare for a new metal roof, and I found burrows that extended quite deep into the wood. By this I mean that the burrow extended more than halfway into the 3 1/2 inch depth, and extended several inches length-wise as well. A couple of the rafters were so riddled that I didn’t feel they were strong enough to scab onto, so I cut off the damaged part and extended the new part several feet into the garage to find solid wood. I was able to break one of those removed pieces across my knee. It was considerably lighter than it should have been, and was definitely structurally weakened.

Then you’re in luck!

Seems like it would be worth a try.

Have you tried wasp spray? They come to our house every year and I have no problem with them. They’re friendly; that’s why they come close!
But Mig does not like them, so he sits on the back steps spraying them with Raid wasp spray a few times early on and we have no more after that.

I try to warn them but they never listen.

Did you dance the message while making a buzzing noise? 'cause I don’t think they have a universal translator.

Just cosmetic? Is that the name of your band because you have to know that holes drilled through paint creates a location for rot to start.

And is “incapable of fighting back” the the metric you use for cockroach clemency?

You cut their head off and put it on a stick, like they did in Lord of the Flies.

Citrus-flavored mouthwash sprayed on the wood. Little twinkle toe Commie bastards hate the stuff.