we have thousands of wood boring bees, that look like bumble bees, attacking our barns and shelters. they swarm so thick you can't use the barns. this is our first full year on this farm and they are terrible. we have had the county agent and an exterminator company out to look, they were no help. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Gerald Wayne Baker (acresbaker@aol.com), April 05, 2002

Answers

Bored teenage boys with boat paddles or bats! My sister in law has the same problem...or rather had the same problem. Her sons found out how much fun it was to go batting for bees and they wiped em out in a year. I don't know of any poison that will work and if you fill up the holes they will either bore new ones or restore the old ones. You might try something similar to a yellow jacket trap but on a bigger scale(something they are attracted to where they end up drowning).

-- Amanda (mrsgunsmyth@hotmail.com), April 05, 2002.

Trap a couple of them live and take to an expert to see if they are mason orchard bees, if yes they do not sting and are valuable pollenators and a sellable commodity.

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), April 05, 2002.

Gerald, we also have these pests but not as bad as you do. What we do is keep several cans of knockdown spray handy along with a few good fly swatters. Also search out their holes they bore and destroy the contents by poking a stick or wire up in it and then give it a good squirt of hornet spray. We had to leave our place for a couple of years and when we came back in 98 they had taken over our place along with all types of snakes. Also a good coat of paint will help to discourage them alot. They seem to not be affected at all by stain, or at least not the stain we had on our soffits. I also might add that they never stung me or hubby or even attempted to that we could tell anyway. You can reduce their numbers by destroying the contents in the holes, it worked for us but it is time consuming. Hope this helps, Teresa

-- teresa (padsr@centurytel.net), April 05, 2002.

We had problems with the wood boring bee's too. We took netting from grapefruit bags & put moth balls in it & hung them from the house, they all went away. It really worked, of course I'm not sure how big an area you'll need to cover, but it may be worth a try.

-- Gail Brinkley (dinsmore@qtm.net), April 05, 2002.

if they are "bees", they are carpenter bees,, and need to get HIGHLY provokes before stingy, and only the females can sting. they are GREAT pollinators,, so dont get rid of them,, unless you HAVE too. To discourage them, to can fill the holes in, with a wood glue or putty, they will use the same holes year after year,, consider yourself lucky you have a domestic pollinator in your yard.

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), April 05, 2002.

Stan is correct about Carpenter bees. I believe the male is mostly yellow, not all black like the female.

-- Joe (CactusJoe001@AOL.com), April 05, 2002.

If you have got Orchard Mason bees (Osmia lignaria), then you may have a very good little home business. According to Nichols Garden Nursery, which sells these critters for $20.95 for a Set of 20 bees in a tube. They also have other sizes, but if you have 1000s of these critters, then I say put them in tubes and sell them.

Also, Mason bees are said to be 90 times more effective than a honeybee in pollination and generally travel only about a 100 meter radius from their home, are solitary, gentle, and non-aggressive.

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), April 05, 2002.

My parents had a serious bee infestation in their house. My dad took great sport in shooting them with scatter shot in a .22 caliber pistol. He also tried badminton rackets . They tried to sell their house and eventually had to have an exterminator out to fill the holes and spray something to kill anymore that would come. They are relentless, and came back every year. We just shot or batted them down every year, and tried to avoid being stung. Sort of like the black flies now invading us in Maine. Good Luck! Cara

-- cara lewis (cnllewis@midcoast.com), April 05, 2002.

I just cannot understand what it is with people and bees! Why would anyone want to hurt a bee that hadn't stung them? Usually if a bee stings, it's because someone was swinging wildy at it or stepped on it.. Bees are wonderful, they are productive, they are working for you free of charge, and all they ask is to be left alone. Oh, and life as we know it would pretty much end without bees, the honeybees are dying out and these mason bees are filling in the gap. No bees= virtually no food= no more people.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), April 06, 2002.

Rebakah apparently you have never had this kind of bee at your house. They will make ugly holes all over the soffit of your house, pole barns, outhouses, etc. If you get invaded with thim you will want to kill them too.

We use to wait and watch them go in there hole and then shove a stick in the hole, crushing the bee. Also as a young boy we would practice our batting with them. I think that is how we learned to hit Homeruns.

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), April 06, 2002.

I also have carpenter bees that made my life miserable last year. They took over my barn, which is full of holes. This winter, I sprayed a little poison in each hole, filled them with caulk, and painted all of the exposed wood. So far, only one new hole has showed up. Rebekah, these huge menacing bees are born kamakazes that can be very unnerving when they constantly dive at you, even if they can't sting. I do NOT want them to hinder my ability to use the barn. My grandkids are deathly afraid of them and refused to go near the barn last year. There will be plenty left over, believe me, if I kill every one that comes within 200 yards of my barn. The males are a shiny greenish black, and they are little devils. So please, no more preaching about how wonderful the little harmless bees are....not true if they take over my place! Man has dominion over the animals, even those stupid carpenter bees! This is war!

-- SteveD(TX) (smdann@swbell.net), April 06, 2002.

I thought I invented bee base ball. Darn. If you want to preserve the barn, take used motor oil and paint all the exposed wooden surfaces. They wont take a bite of it, and it preserves the wood almost as good as paint. This also repels: ants, carpenter ants, and termites. I dont mind a few of the wood borer bees, but when they can be heard deep inside the structure munching on the internal workings, its time for bee base ball!

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), April 06, 2002.

We had them pretty bad last year, then we also had a bit of a fly problem too. We put up these sticky fly- tubes (sort of like sticky fly strips, but on a paper tube about 1" in dia and 24" long) for the flys, but ended up catching many more carpenter bees than flys! Haven't seen one since! My Dad, who lives in D.C. had them boring into the framing of his porch for years. He always said they were harmless until the morning he steped out his back door and the porch collapsed from all the holes!

-- TonyG in Md (nothere@here.com), April 08, 2002.

With the exceptions of Stan, Joe, B.C., Rebekah and a couple of others, you people seem to be of the "if it moves, kill it" school. Why don't you put as much energy into becoming educated as you do into killing?! Honeybees are not native pollinators and are currently suffering devastating losses to a mite. There are almost no "wild" honeybees left in this country because of that. The carpenter bees and their kin are our native pollinators. They are healthier and more active than honeybees. If all the honey bees die from mites, and the carpenter bees become fool's targets, what will you do for pollinators in your precious homestead gardens? Better get your little paintbrushes ready and plan to spend a lot of time out their brushing stamens and pistils or you won't be putting up much winter food before long!

-- Deborah Stephenson (wonkaandgypsy@hotmail.com), April 08, 2002.

I,too, am having what seems to be carpenter bee problems. I'm grateful for their pollination capabilities and I don't really want to harm them, BUT there's "jillions" of them in my huge cedar tree beside my front porch. I'm afraid they'll kill my tree. Any suggestions or advice? Jean Moore Murphy, Waurika, OK (jm21539@aol.com)

-- Jean Murphy (jm21539@aol.com), May 05, 2002.

We've got a slight problem at our house, but I know from experience that they get worse if you don't do something. One of the best resources I've found is at http://www.unexco.com/carpbees.html in terms of control. Some of these measures are humane--i.e. putting up netting to keep them out, etc, but not all are. They are pretty tenacious bees, and a little terrifying, but they generally do not sting, which is good to know; however, we have some nosy animals to think about, and a sting from a female would probably kill them since they are so small.

-- Tiana French (crfren2@uky.edu), May 06, 2002.

Thanks Tina for the web site. Just checked it out. I'm having a big problem with the winged invaders also. I dont want to exterminate if I dont have to, but I was living here first and they were not invited guests. Anyone who wants to save these bees can write me and you are welcome to come take them away, FREE !

-- Mike (gone_fishin1@yahoo.com), May 08, 2002.

We too were plagued with these little devils, boring into the supports of our raised deck. We have found that spraying plain ammonia, mixed with water, seems to repel them very handily. We use a garden sprayer, which is hooked to the garden hose, and has a small container which holds the ammonia, and a dial for mixing at variable ratios. It is very quick to apply, and seems to last for 1 to 2 months, depending on the amount of rain we receive. We live right on the Albemarle sound, so we probably are wetter as a rule than most other locations....

-- terry l brown (terbrwn6@netscape.net), May 09, 2002.