Are carpenter bees drilling into the fascia, soffet and beams of your log home? If they are, here’s how to effectively deal with the problem.

Acquire the following items:  a can of WD 40, a roll of aluminum foil, and a tube of log home caulk.

Put the red applicator straw on the WD 40. Stick the red applicator straw as far as you can into each carpenter bee hole and Spray WD 40 into the hole until it bubbles out. This will coat any existing carpenter bee larvae so they will die. In some cases you will spray into a hole with a real carpenter bee in residence. The bee will usually stumble out of the hole as if it is drunk. In this state the bee is easy to safely kill.

Once the hole has been treated with WD 40,tear off a small piece of aluminum foil and roll it into a ball, put it on the tip of a screwdriver  and stuff it into the carpenter bee hole. Caulk each hole with a log home caulk such as Energy Seal or Super Caulk.

Follow the above procedure with every hole that the carpenter bees have drilled into your home.

Carpenter bees, once they get started on your home, can do enormous amounts of damage tunneling through your wood. Further damage can occurs when the woodpeckers come calling to harvest the bee larvae.

Carpenter bees are like salmon, they return to the same place where they were born,  and continue to grow the bee population and generate increasing damage to your log home each year .  Following the procedures outlined above will make a major dent in your carpenter bee population in just one season.

There are also several stain additives that will help with Carpenter Bees. The best of the bunch is NBS 30. This is an insect repellent stain and paint additive. Add just a pint to a 5 gallon pail of log home finish and apply then apply the finish to your home. NBS 30 is a citronella based product and the citronella odor will run off carpenter bees as well as lady bugs. Our field results indicate that NBS 30 should be added to log home finish each time that your home is stained but only in the final coat of stain. The citronella odor will be noticeable to you for several weeks. A single application will normally run off the Carpenter Bees for several years.

If you are not planning to stain your home and have a lot of Carpenter Bee activity try getting rid of them by spraying with Beegone. An 8 ounce bottle mixes with 5 gallons of water and should be sprayed on your home.

Spray the product where you see Carpenter Bee activity. This product will literally drop the Carpenter Bees to the ground.

This product is a pyrethrum based insecticide. Read the label and follow the directions carefully. As the product will wash off in the rain you will probably need to retreat monthly during the carpenter bee season.
Beegone is available for sale in all states with the exception of New York where its use is limited to pest control experts.

The latest wrinkle in getting rid of Carpenter Bees is a new product called the Carpenter Bee Chamber.  Remember the advertisement for the Roach Motel. The roaches enter but they never leave? Its the same idea with the Carpenter Bee Chamber. You mount Carpenter Bee Chambers on the Fascia and Soffet where you have some bee activity and the bees go in the hole. Once inside they get caught up in some sticky stuff and cannot leave.  A pesticide expert that I know says that this is the best solution he has seen for carpenter bees.

We field tested the product on a log restaurant near our offices that was so over run with carpenter bees that the bees dive bombed you when you went in to the restaurant. Two weeks after the Carpenter Bee Chamber went up the bees were gone!

NBS-30, Beegone and the Carpenter Bee Chamber are all available at www.Logfinish.com.  

I just built my dream home and the carpenter bees and ruining it by putting holes everywhere.

What should I do?