May 23, 2023 • 20 mins
Jim and Mary walk listeners through how to stop carpenter bees from damaging the wood around their home, without having to kill of these important pollinators.
When it comes to stopping carpenter bees and the damage they cause to the wood surfaces around your exterior of your home, one thing is for sure, it takes a persistent approach to win the battle!
Carpenter bees can cause extensive damage to the exterior wood surfaces all over your property. Not just to the wood siding and eaves on your house, but any wood surface that is exposed. That includes your garage, shed, pergola, swing sets and yes, even wood fences.
Unfortunately, once they find a surface to their liking, they keep coming back. In fact, with each new generation of carpenter bees, they will continue to drill more new holes, all while expanding their original homestead into an even larger nesting site with more tunnels.
See how to safely stop carpenter bees from damaging the wood around your home, and still keep these valuable pollinators around!
When it comes to stopping carpenter bees and the damage they cause to the wood surfaces around your exterior of your home, one thing is for sure, it takes a persistent approach to win the battle!
Carpenter bees can cause extensive damage to the exterior wood surfaces all over your property. Not just to the wood siding and eaves on your house, but any wood surface that is exposed. That includes your garage, shed, pergola, swing sets and yes, even wood fences.
Unfortunately, once they find a surface to their liking, they keep coming back. In fact, with each new generation of carpenter bees, they will continue to drill more new holes, all while expanding their original homestead into an even larger nesting site with more tunnels.
See how to safely stop carpenter bees from damaging the wood around your home, and still keep these valuable pollinators around!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I am your host, Jim Compettiwith my wife Mary Competti and Mary today
talking about carpenter bees, which we'vehad a lot of history with. Yeah,
(00:23):
these little things have been give mefits 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 corbelsand guess who's coming calling, right,
Carpenter bees can be really difficult todeal with him. We're going to talk
(00:44):
about them in length, about howto 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 tobe 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
(01:08):
a great thing to have, butyou know, they do really cause havoc.
They do, but they're also oneof the best pollinators around. So
that's what we're going to try towork 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 youcan always reach us vias email at the
farm at Owgarden dot com. Welove your questions, we love your thoughts
(01:30):
ideas for the podcast. You cansign up to follow along at simple Gardenlife
dot com. You can also followon on Facebook or your favorite podcast app
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 areso poignant to what we're talking about,
(01:52):
and honestly, I could probably readthirty to fifty of these from our inbox
in just the last week. Becauseit's springtime and carpenter bees are very active.
So why don't you go ahead withthe question of the week and then
we'll get into the topic right ouremail has been blooming investing at the seams
at this point, but carpenter beesare at the head of the topic.
So this question of the Week comesfrom Ronnie Davis from Covington, Kentucky.
(02:15):
Too far from us, not toofar. I just put up a beautiful
wood garden fence last year and thecarpenter bees are destroying it the spring.
It's made from rough song pine andI'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 isreally tough to watch something that you have
(02:38):
just built or you have there andsee these carpenter bees coming in droves and
taking it out. So we're goingto cover a lot for you, Ronnie
in today's podcast and hopefully give youa few great solutions that will work to
say that beautiful fence. But let'sstart by covering why carpenter bees actually can
be beneficial for gardeners, and thenwe'll get into answering his question over the
(02:59):
course of this post and why it'sbest not to just start spraying with them
insecticides. So let's start with whata carpenter bee actually is married, you
know, you know good, there'ssome 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 amajor pollinator, right, absolutely, And
if you just try to kill themoff with a sex side and spray,
(03:20):
you're killing off the pollinators that areactually pollinating your flowers, your vegetable garden.
So you really don't want to dothat, but I understand the pain.
Yeah, And it's not just thecarpenter bees. I mean, they
are incredible pollinators, but you alsowhen 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
(03:43):
different than other bees. So let'skind of talk about that and then we'll
work our way into how to deterthem and also how to control them and
maybe keep your keep your woodwork safe. Right, and a carbon bee,
you know, you can really determinea carpenter bee versus a bumblebee when you
feel the wood shavings coming down onyou while you're grilling, So the other
(04:04):
night. You know, we werestating at the grill and down by our
barn and the wood shavings started comingdown on me. I looked up at
the carboner bees drilling. But theyresemble bumblebees very similar. Yeah, there
is a few key differences, butyou're absolutely right. A lot of people
confuse them with bumblebees. So here'sthe difference. Carpenter bees do not have
any hair on their stomach. Nowfor most people, they're like, yeah,
(04:25):
I don't want to get but theydon'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 andthe queen bees like and normal bees when
we talk about they all have stingerswhere 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
(04:47):
everybody knows carpenter bees knows exactly whatI'm talking about, you will get dive
bombed by the bees and they'll comeright 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 honeybeeor other they do not die when they
(05:12):
sting you. But they are veryit 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 talkabout 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 aredrilling out the hole, they're laying the
(05:33):
larvae. The male bee is checkingout and trying to protector. He is
the protector, So don't be sonervous around them. They're The likelihood of
getting stung by a carbon to beeis very very minimal compared to other wasps
and bees um as. Again,the female have stingers, but they're simply
not aggressive. U. The thirddifference is that and this is the big
(05:54):
difference, is that bumblebees and youknow, live in the ground and they
live in calling where carpenter bees theyshelter 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
(06:16):
round, they have black on bothends, and they have a yellow stripe
in the middle. So you maybe 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, andyou 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. Imean, Mary just talked about it last
(06:38):
night. We were sitting down ina 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 downand you look up and I mean,
they're amazing that. The word carpenteris great because they drill perfect holes.
They're amazing at it looks like itlooks like a drill drill bit did it,
and they will And the only problemis that adult bees you know,
(07:01):
once they drill that it's not aone 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 hibernationwas 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 holesor she's going to take an existing hole
(07:23):
and make it a bigger condo.But this is what you're seeing right now
is all of this activity. Soover the winter, the ones that survive
they store a limited amount of pollenand food to survive, and then the
bees that survive the winter emerge nowup 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,
(07:45):
your vegetable plants. You know,they have a lot of benefits to them,
but they also can cause a lotof 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 laythe larvae for the next generation. So
they may reuse an existing gallery ofholes or they may excavate new and that's
what they were doing last night downon our brun and they were trying to
find new holes. So the timeperiod that you've got to try to repel
(08:09):
them is somewhat short when you reallythink of summer. Almost all the males
they die off by July. Thereis some limited action after that, but
most of the hole drilling and everythingthat'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 layand wait until next year. And I
think a big misconception is that ifyou look at your wood and you see
(08:31):
one single hole, it may notbe just one single hole, because,
like you said, they have awhole condos system. So they will drill
a hole and then they'll turn tothe right or the left and they'll continue
to drill holes so that way theycan 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 andthen what's really bad is if you
(08:52):
get those insects in there and thenthe woodpeckers come to get those insects,
they can just decimate it. Soit'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 killa lot of beneficial insects in the process,
but there are some good deterrence thatworked well, and you know,
I mean, that's what's really important. All right, let's take a quick
break, Mary, and we'll beright back after this. You know,
(09:16):
we talk a lot about organic onthis podcast, and it's something that we
believe in very strongly, whether it'sour garden, our landscape, or in
our home. There's something good aboutknowing wherever you are and whatever you're doing,
it's natural. And you know,I think about that when it comes
to like our betting. I mean, did you know that, like most
betting is made with harsh chemicals likeformaldehyde, synthetic pesticides, and toxic dyes.
(09:37):
But for us, you know,we're really happy that one company is
changing that game and there's changing thatstandard for good bowl and branch. They
really do make incredible sheets without anytoxins or harsh chemicals. We're talking about
one hundred percent organic cotton that's traceable. You know, from the family farm
to your family home. Absolutely.And you know when we first ordered a
Bowl and Branch, we got thispackage and I just felt so special just
(10:00):
even getting into the mail. Ithad a nice white box, it had
a ribbon, it had a bow, and it sets apart from any other
sheets. And then once you openthe package, you can immediately feel how
silky and soft they are. Butthe best thing is that the human softer
with every wash I make with them. That's right, So you can sleep
better at night with Bowl and Branchsheets. You can get fifteen percent off
(10:20):
your first order when you use ourpromo code Simple Garden at Bowl and Branch
dot com. That's Bowl and Branchbolll a nd Branch dot Com promo code
Simple Garden. Exclusions apply and seesite for the details. So take a
look Bowl and Branch. We certainlylove them. So, Mary, let's
talk about some of the ways thatare really good in deterring. We have
(10:43):
a lot of experience with this overour 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, ifyou have clear would you want to seal
it. But we have better luckwith high gloss and high stains on our
(11:05):
wood. Yeah, we do.High glass stains and high glass paints seem
to make carbonbies not want to dealwith it. We've had all of our
woodwork in a semi gloss that's aroundit 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 withthis day age, a year or two,
they'll start to come back. Butthat is the first thing. If
(11:28):
you have natural wood and you wantto keep it natural, at least get
a stealer on that. It's goingto 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 betteroff than unseen wood. Absolutely. And
spreading with oils that the carbonrees hatealso works well. I think this is
(11:48):
the big one here. So peoplealways 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 littlehand pump spray bottles, fill it with
(12:09):
water and then what I think wetend to twelve drops, tend to twelve
drops of your oil choice. Forus, I think centrus oils really worked
well. It's something we use alot. We use peppermint oil to tur
spiders and the other other pests aswell. Absolutely, so what you want
to do is basically go out andyou want to spray that surface. And
(12:31):
you know, here's the biggest thingwhere people may struggle with the turrants as
far as the oils, it's nota 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 totwo months. You have to go out
and spray that. I mean forus, it's usually what two three days
every just depends on how much itrains, Yeah, and then keeping it
(12:52):
fresh. So you're right, ifwe get a hard rain, we'll put
it on the very next day.Again, rain or heavy dew. You
know, you really have to makesure that the peppermint oil or such a
soil or almond oil is really prevalentand not diluted from rainer or do.
Yeah, and it does work,I'm telling you, if you stay diligent
with this, it really does workand they'll get there. So that's one
great way to deter them. Andyou know, deterring such a nice thing
(13:15):
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 stillgonna help with that pollinating. You just
want to keep them away from yourhome 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 tonumber two, which is fake waspnest.
(13:37):
So now you have to understand thatcarpenter bees do not like hornet nest
wasp nest because they feed on thelarva 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 willnot try to drill. Right there,
now, it has to be realistic. And I'm Arry's laughing right now because
(13:58):
there are some great eight and we'llput links on the podcast. Article for
this. But there are some greatfake wasp nest out there that you can
put in hornet's nest that you canhang, um, if you're fortunate enough.
We had a friend of ours afew years back that sent us a
dead hornet's nest, do you rememberthat? And we put that up and
finally finally disintegrated. But when weput that up and hung it in the
(14:20):
area underneath our leaves, perfectly nocarpenter be wanted to go there at all.
So those have as much success whenI tried the paper bag track.
Well. So paper bags are saidto 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 yougo to the grocery store, but you
(14:41):
really should to make it effective.You want to kind of like blow up
a balloon and you want to kindof like almost paper machee over that.
So it's round. Um. Icame home one day and I see this.
I see a basically a paper baghanging from one of our beams,
and I asked Mary, I saidwhat, because I'm going to try this
for the carpenter be And I saidwhy, I think it has to be
round. We kind of laughed aboutit and semi round. And when I
(15:03):
stood there talking to a carbonrby cameup and tried to drill into the bags.
Okay, so didn't drill in torwood, but it worked in the
area that it was directly in.But you know, as a long beam,
so just kind of moved down theway it did. So the fake
boss. Honestly, if there,if there are authentic enough, they will
really work to help. And thenthis is a big one. We just
(15:26):
if you don't mind wind chimes,So carbonr bees do not like noise.
We've played our speakers before. Noiseand vibration, yeah, and it will
work and keep them away. Windchimes do a nice job of it if
you can handle wind chimes. Ipersonally am not a big wind chime guy.
I don't think you are like thewood yeah exactly. But a radio
will work for a while if youhave a really bad area, play some
(15:48):
music. The vibrations they do notlike. 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 peopledon't go that next step to prevent more
damage. So remember that when they'redrilling 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 tolay the larva for the next generation.
(16:11):
And you have got to eliminate thatlarva. We talk about, you know,
keeping things alive and keeping but ifyou don't take that larva out,
it's going to hatch and they're goingto make that whole bigger for the next
year's family. So you got toget in there and knock it out.
And then most important, you gotto fill it right. And it's all
about balance. You know, wewant to keep the bees alive for the
pollination, but you also can't justsacrifice your home and your barns, porches
(16:34):
patios to let the carbon to belarva survive. Yeah, we're gonna get
to that to second because you cangive them an alternate home, which is
what which is a really good wayto do it. But what you want
to do when you do have damageand 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 vinegarand water. It's a fifty fifty percent
(16:56):
mix, and it's we're just talkingabout 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. Andyou spray it in there and you're gonna
kill that larva and most importantly,they're not going to make that whole bigger
(17:18):
and they're not going to come back. But you want to fill it then
to make sure that they don't havean easy entrance to the home next year,
right exactly. And you know,the whole point here is is that
you spray it first, then youfill the hole with wood filler or cocking
or whatever it takes to make surethat it's covered. That's right. So
okay, So we've talked about repellingthem, so there are some other options.
And this is when we tried afew years ago. It's kind of
(17:41):
neat. So you have to understandthat 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 maketheir home again. So if you can
give them a home that they likethat's not your home, not your wood
(18:02):
beams on your house, or they'regoing to be much better and they're going
to still stay around. So thereare a lot and again we'll put a
link on the article on the podcaston Simple Gardenlife dot com for this,
but there are mason bee homes thatyou can actually if you have a lot
of bee activity, you can hangthem. The bees will usually try to
find them because they're easy to youknow, the holes that don't have to
(18:25):
work very hard. They don't haveto work very hard. And then you
can relocate them, relocate them toyour woods, relocate them to the to
the edge of your property. Andthe 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 greatway to We talk about this all the
(18:45):
time, the balance of nature,keeping the balance. It's a great way
to not just kill an entire populationof bees that actually have some purpose right,
just not the purpose that you wantthem to be wiping out your property.
And you can find them as carbonto bee houses or Mason be Home.
There are like little tubes stuck ina stuck in a stack, and
then what happens is that the beeswill go into there and then then you
(19:07):
can transport them to another area.That's right. And if you have old
fence posts that are out of theway and they've stayed in there, let
them stay there. That's a that'sanother 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 bringthe carpenter bees that way. Um,
it's it's a lower trap, butit keeps them out. So again,
you know, when we talk aboutthis, let's just kind of go over.
You know, carpenter bees are goingto be host. You've enjoyed this
(19:30):
episode, you strive to the SimpleGarden podcast on iTunes, Apple, podcast,
Spotify, or most of your favoritepodcast a check. You can also
head over to Simple Garden Lives ofDaily. We can listen and read all
of the show notes to every episodeand if you have any questions and any
ideas for shot topics or if youwant to share your favorite gardens of email
us at the farm at next time. The best defense is being diligent,
(19:55):
check those areas daily, put anaction 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 alwaysthe 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 freshpaint, fresh stain and spraying with with
(20:22):
these essential oils. Yeah, andthose are the ways if you really want
to try to do it without killinghim. I know there's carpenter be traps
and there's all this, and wejust try not to go down that road.
Um. But if you can trythe sprays and you stay active with
them, it usually works out prettygood. It doesn't. And then you
know, if you have the essentialoil sprays, your house smells great too.
Oh there you go. See it'sa weather benefit. All right.
(20:45):
So I think we're at the endof 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. Allright, everyone, so long, we'll
talk to you next week.
Welcome to the Simple Garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and alwaysrewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello andwelcome everybody to Simple Garden Life Podcast.
I am your host, Jim Compettiwith my wife Mary Competti and Mary today
talking about carpenter bees, which we'vehad a lot of history with. Yeah,
(00:23):
these little things have been give mefits 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 corbelsand guess who's coming calling, right,
Carpenter bees can be really difficult todeal with him. We're going to talk
(00:44):
about them in length, about howto 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 tobe 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
(01:08):
a great thing to have, butyou know, they do really cause havoc.
They do, but they're also oneof the best pollinators around. So
that's what we're going to try towork 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 youcan always reach us vias email at the
farm at Owgarden dot com. Welove your questions, we love your thoughts
(01:30):
ideas for the podcast. You cansign up to follow along at simple Gardenlife
dot com. You can also followon on Facebook or your favorite podcast app
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 areso poignant to what we're talking about,
(01:52):
and honestly, I could probably readthirty to fifty of these from our inbox
in just the last week. Becauseit's springtime and carpenter bees are very active.
So why don't you go ahead withthe question of the week and then
we'll get into the topic right ouremail has been blooming investing at the seams
at this point, but carpenter beesare at the head of the topic.
So this question of the Week comesfrom Ronnie Davis from Covington, Kentucky.
(02:15):
Too far from us, not toofar. I just put up a beautiful
wood garden fence last year and thecarpenter bees are destroying it the spring.
It's made from rough song pine andI'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 isreally tough to watch something that you have
(02:38):
just built or you have there andsee these carpenter bees coming in droves and
taking it out. So we're goingto cover a lot for you, Ronnie
in today's podcast and hopefully give youa few great solutions that will work to
say that beautiful fence. But let'sstart by covering why carpenter bees actually can
be beneficial for gardeners, and thenwe'll get into answering his question over the
(02:59):
course of this post and why it'sbest not to just start spraying with them
insecticides. So let's start with whata carpenter bee actually is married, you
know, you know good, there'ssome 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 amajor pollinator, right, absolutely, And
if you just try to kill themoff with a sex side and spray,
(03:20):
you're killing off the pollinators that areactually pollinating your flowers, your vegetable garden.
So you really don't want to dothat, but I understand the pain.
Yeah, And it's not just thecarpenter bees. I mean, they
are incredible pollinators, but you alsowhen 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
(03:43):
different than other bees. So let'skind of talk about that and then we'll
work our way into how to deterthem and also how to control them and
maybe keep your keep your woodwork safe. Right, and a carbon bee,
you know, you can really determinea carpenter bee versus a bumblebee when you
feel the wood shavings coming down onyou while you're grilling, So the other
(04:04):
night. You know, we werestating at the grill and down by our
barn and the wood shavings started comingdown on me. I looked up at
the carboner bees drilling. But theyresemble bumblebees very similar. Yeah, there
is a few key differences, butyou're absolutely right. A lot of people
confuse them with bumblebees. So here'sthe difference. Carpenter bees do not have
any hair on their stomach. Nowfor most people, they're like, yeah,
(04:25):
I don't want to get but theydon'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 andthe queen bees like and normal bees when
we talk about they all have stingerswhere 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
(04:47):
everybody knows carpenter bees knows exactly whatI'm talking about, you will get dive
bombed by the bees and they'll comeright 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 honeybeeor other they do not die when they
(05:12):
sting you. But they are veryit 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 talkabout 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 aredrilling out the hole, they're laying the
(05:33):
larvae. The male bee is checkingout and trying to protector. He is
the protector, So don't be sonervous around them. They're The likelihood of
getting stung by a carbon to beeis very very minimal compared to other wasps
and bees um as. Again,the female have stingers, but they're simply
not aggressive. U. The thirddifference is that and this is the big
(05:54):
difference, is that bumblebees and youknow, live in the ground and they
live in calling where carpenter bees theyshelter 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
(06:16):
round, they have black on bothends, and they have a yellow stripe
in the middle. So you maybe 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, andyou 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. Imean, Mary just talked about it last
(06:38):
night. We were sitting down ina 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 downand you look up and I mean,
they're amazing that. The word carpenteris great because they drill perfect holes.
They're amazing at it looks like itlooks like a drill drill bit did it,
and they will And the only problemis that adult bees you know,
(07:01):
once they drill that it's not aone 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 hibernationwas 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 holesor she's going to take an existing hole
(07:23):
and make it a bigger condo.But this is what you're seeing right now
is all of this activity. Soover the winter, the ones that survive
they store a limited amount of pollenand food to survive, and then the
bees that survive the winter emerge nowup 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,
(07:45):
your vegetable plants. You know,they have a lot of benefits to them,
but they also can cause a lotof 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 laythe larvae for the next generation. So
they may reuse an existing gallery ofholes or they may excavate new and that's
what they were doing last night downon our brun and they were trying to
find new holes. So the timeperiod that you've got to try to repel
(08:09):
them is somewhat short when you reallythink of summer. Almost all the males
they die off by July. Thereis some limited action after that, but
most of the hole drilling and everythingthat'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 layand wait until next year. And I
think a big misconception is that ifyou look at your wood and you see
(08:31):
one single hole, it may notbe just one single hole, because,
like you said, they have awhole condos system. So they will drill
a hole and then they'll turn tothe right or the left and they'll continue
to drill holes so that way theycan 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 andthen what's really bad is if you
(08:52):
get those insects in there and thenthe woodpeckers come to get those insects,
they can just decimate it. Soit'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 killa lot of beneficial insects in the process,
but there are some good deterrence thatworked well, and you know,
I mean, that's what's really important. All right, let's take a quick
break, Mary, and we'll beright back after this. You know,
(09:16):
we talk a lot about organic onthis podcast, and it's something that we
believe in very strongly, whether it'sour garden, our landscape, or in
our home. There's something good aboutknowing wherever you are and whatever you're doing,
it's natural. And you know,I think about that when it comes
to like our betting. I mean, did you know that, like most
betting is made with harsh chemicals likeformaldehyde, synthetic pesticides, and toxic dyes.
(09:37):
But for us, you know,we're really happy that one company is
changing that game and there's changing thatstandard for good bowl and branch. They
really do make incredible sheets without anytoxins or harsh chemicals. We're talking about
one hundred percent organic cotton that's traceable. You know, from the family farm
to your family home. Absolutely.And you know when we first ordered a
Bowl and Branch, we got thispackage and I just felt so special just
(10:00):
even getting into the mail. Ithad a nice white box, it had
a ribbon, it had a bow, and it sets apart from any other
sheets. And then once you openthe package, you can immediately feel how
silky and soft they are. Butthe best thing is that the human softer
with every wash I make with them. That's right, So you can sleep
better at night with Bowl and Branchsheets. You can get fifteen percent off
(10:20):
your first order when you use ourpromo code Simple Garden at Bowl and Branch
dot com. That's Bowl and Branchbolll a nd Branch dot Com promo code
Simple Garden. Exclusions apply and seesite for the details. So take a
look Bowl and Branch. We certainlylove them. So, Mary, let's
talk about some of the ways thatare really good in deterring. We have
(10:43):
a lot of experience with this overour 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, ifyou have clear would you want to seal
it. But we have better luckwith high gloss and high stains on our
(11:05):
wood. Yeah, we do.High glass stains and high glass paints seem
to make carbonbies not want to dealwith it. We've had all of our
woodwork in a semi gloss that's aroundit 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 withthis day age, a year or two,
they'll start to come back. Butthat is the first thing. If
(11:28):
you have natural wood and you wantto keep it natural, at least get
a stealer on that. It's goingto 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 betteroff than unseen wood. Absolutely. And
spreading with oils that the carbonrees hatealso works well. I think this is
(11:48):
the big one here. So peoplealways 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 littlehand pump spray bottles, fill it with
(12:09):
water and then what I think wetend to twelve drops, tend to twelve
drops of your oil choice. Forus, I think centrus oils really worked
well. It's something we use alot. We use peppermint oil to tur
spiders and the other other pests aswell. Absolutely, so what you want
to do is basically go out andyou want to spray that surface. And
(12:31):
you know, here's the biggest thingwhere people may struggle with the turrants as
far as the oils, it's nota 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 totwo months. You have to go out
and spray that. I mean forus, it's usually what two three days
every just depends on how much itrains, Yeah, and then keeping it
(12:52):
fresh. So you're right, ifwe get a hard rain, we'll put
it on the very next day.Again, rain or heavy dew. You
know, you really have to makesure that the peppermint oil or such a
soil or almond oil is really prevalentand not diluted from rainer or do.
Yeah, and it does work,I'm telling you, if you stay diligent
with this, it really does workand they'll get there. So that's one
great way to deter them. Andyou know, deterring such a nice thing
(13:15):
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 stillgonna help with that pollinating. You just
want to keep them away from yourhome 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 tonumber two, which is fake waspnest.
(13:37):
So now you have to understand thatcarpenter bees do not like hornet nest
wasp nest because they feed on thelarva 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 willnot try to drill. Right there,
now, it has to be realistic. And I'm Arry's laughing right now because
(13:58):
there are some great eight and we'llput links on the podcast. Article for
this. But there are some greatfake wasp nest out there that you can
put in hornet's nest that you canhang, um, if you're fortunate enough.
We had a friend of ours afew years back that sent us a
dead hornet's nest, do you rememberthat? And we put that up and
finally finally disintegrated. But when weput that up and hung it in the
(14:20):
area underneath our leaves, perfectly nocarpenter be wanted to go there at all.
So those have as much success whenI tried the paper bag track.
Well. So paper bags are saidto 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 yougo to the grocery store, but you
(14:41):
really should to make it effective.You want to kind of like blow up
a balloon and you want to kindof like almost paper machee over that.
So it's round. Um. Icame home one day and I see this.
I see a basically a paper baghanging from one of our beams,
and I asked Mary, I saidwhat, because I'm going to try this
for the carpenter be And I saidwhy, I think it has to be
round. We kind of laughed aboutit and semi round. And when I
(15:03):
stood there talking to a carbonrby cameup and tried to drill into the bags.
Okay, so didn't drill in torwood, but it worked in the
area that it was directly in.But you know, as a long beam,
so just kind of moved down theway it did. So the fake
boss. Honestly, if there,if there are authentic enough, they will
really work to help. And thenthis is a big one. We just
(15:26):
if you don't mind wind chimes,So carbonr bees do not like noise.
We've played our speakers before. Noiseand vibration, yeah, and it will
work and keep them away. Windchimes do a nice job of it if
you can handle wind chimes. Ipersonally am not a big wind chime guy.
I don't think you are like thewood yeah exactly. But a radio
will work for a while if youhave a really bad area, play some
(15:48):
music. The vibrations they do notlike. 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 peopledon't go that next step to prevent more
damage. So remember that when they'redrilling 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 tolay the larva for the next generation.
(16:11):
And you have got to eliminate thatlarva. We talk about, you know,
keeping things alive and keeping but ifyou don't take that larva out,
it's going to hatch and they're goingto make that whole bigger for the next
year's family. So you got toget in there and knock it out.
And then most important, you gotto fill it right. And it's all
about balance. You know, wewant to keep the bees alive for the
pollination, but you also can't justsacrifice your home and your barns, porches
(16:34):
patios to let the carbon to belarva survive. Yeah, we're gonna get
to that to second because you cangive them an alternate home, which is
what which is a really good wayto do it. But what you want
to do when you do have damageand 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 vinegarand water. It's a fifty fifty percent
(16:56):
mix, and it's we're just talkingabout 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. Andyou spray it in there and you're gonna
kill that larva and most importantly,they're not going to make that whole bigger
(17:18):
and they're not going to come back. But you want to fill it then
to make sure that they don't havean easy entrance to the home next year,
right exactly. And you know,the whole point here is is that
you spray it first, then youfill the hole with wood filler or cocking
or whatever it takes to make surethat it's covered. That's right. So
okay, So we've talked about repellingthem, so there are some other options.
And this is when we tried afew years ago. It's kind of
(17:41):
neat. So you have to understandthat 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 maketheir home again. So if you can
give them a home that they likethat's not your home, not your wood
(18:02):
beams on your house, or they'regoing to be much better and they're going
to still stay around. So thereare a lot and again we'll put a
link on the article on the podcaston Simple Gardenlife dot com for this,
but there are mason bee homes thatyou can actually if you have a lot
of bee activity, you can hangthem. The bees will usually try to
find them because they're easy to youknow, the holes that don't have to
(18:25):
work very hard. They don't haveto work very hard. And then you
can relocate them, relocate them toyour woods, relocate them to the to
the edge of your property. Andthe 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 greatway to We talk about this all the
(18:45):
time, the balance of nature,keeping the balance. It's a great way
to not just kill an entire populationof bees that actually have some purpose right,
just not the purpose that you wantthem to be wiping out your property.
And you can find them as carbonto bee houses or Mason be Home.
There are like little tubes stuck ina stuck in a stack, and
then what happens is that the beeswill go into there and then then you
(19:07):
can transport them to another area.That's right. And if you have old
fence posts that are out of theway and they've stayed in there, let
them stay there. That's a that'sanother 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 bringthe carpenter bees that way. Um,
it's it's a lower trap, butit keeps them out. So again,
you know, when we talk aboutthis, let's just kind of go over.
You know, carpenter bees are goingto be host. You've enjoyed this
(19:30):
episode, you strive to the SimpleGarden podcast on iTunes, Apple, podcast,
Spotify, or most of your favoritepodcast a check. You can also
head over to Simple Garden Lives ofDaily. We can listen and read all
of the show notes to every episodeand if you have any questions and any
ideas for shot topics or if youwant to share your favorite gardens of email
us at the farm at next time. The best defense is being diligent,
(19:55):
check those areas daily, put anaction 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 alwaysthe 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 freshpaint, fresh stain and spraying with with
(20:22):
these essential oils. Yeah, andthose are the ways if you really want
to try to do it without killinghim. I know there's carpenter be traps
and there's all this, and wejust try not to go down that road.
Um. But if you can trythe sprays and you stay active with
them, it usually works out prettygood. It doesn't. And then you
know, if you have the essentialoil sprays, your house smells great too.
Oh there you go. See it'sa weather benefit. All right.
(20:45):
So I think we're at the endof 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. Allright, everyone, so long, we'll
talk to you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!