Carpenter Bees

[furo]

Just moved to New England area a couple of months ago and the home inspector, although tasked to look for wood boring insects, did not notice the carpenter bee infestation that now plagues the house. The carpenter bees are apparently hatching now in the late summer and it's real bad. I can hear them through the ceiling, moving around, in an area about 2ft x 6ft in the upstairs bedroom. I have no idea how many carpenter bees are up there, but I don't want to find out the hard way.

I'm worried that having a pest guy spray them twice now has just aggravated the problem, since they are territorial, and like to nest in the exact same spot year after year. This is highly frustrating. The first day these bees start getting through the ceiling into the home, my wife is going to freak out, big time.

 

[MrG]

Ugh. Stupid wood bees. I hate them so much.

Most of my knowledge on wood bees is from the prevention angle, so I can't offer much help regarding what to do once they're so firmly entrenched. However, one bit of advice I can give: They probably aren't going to burrow into your house. They burrow into wood to build nests within the tunnels they create; they don't dig through the wood out to the other side. That being the case, I wouldn't worry too much about them starting to appear out of holes they've dug through the wood to the ceiling.

 

[thekunk07]

the f'd my garage up pretty well.

 

[HORNS]

Delta Dust the **** out of your house.

 

[why]

I don't know the New England climate too well, but most apids should have already hatched. In the next two months or so their colonies will become dormant after mating. The only bees that survive the winter should be the queens, so it might be easiest to remove them during the colder months.

They're not really harmful unless their nest is threatened. In my garden the bees sometimes might land on me to groom their pile before flying off to continue feeding.

 

[Joffrey]

Napalm those motherfuckers.

 

[thekunk07]

^that's pretty much what i do. **** the ecosystem, my mortgage is really, really huge.

 

[edmorel]

Originally Posted by Jodum5

Napalm those motherfuckers.

Originally Posted by thekunk07

^that's pretty much what i do. **** the ecosystem, my mortgage is really, really huge.

+1

 

[thekunk07]

i also had termites the first 2 years in the house but got it treated aggressively (and had a transferable contract) so we haven't seen them again.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Hahaha the east coast is fucked up. You guys have too many bugs. Just get half a dozen of these fellows and set them loose in your ceiling.Couple hours later... problem solved.

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[Reggs]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

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Dethklok should write a song about this.

 

[why]

Parasites often only replace existing colonies, so the problem of stinging insects does not go away.

 

[Joffrey]

Originally Posted by Tokyo Slim

Hahaha the east coast is fucked up. You guys have too many bugs.

Just get half a dozen of these fellows and set them loose in your ceiling.Couple hours later... problem solved.

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The horror, the horror

 

[kabert]

Get a different exterminator. Find a small, one-old-guy business who really knows what he's doing and who is not cheap. Wouldn't surprise me to learn that you don't have carpenter bees but have an ordinary wasp nest up there and they can get in through some cracks in your soffits.

 

[furo]

Originally Posted by kabert

Get a different exterminator. Find a small, one-old-guy business who really knows what he's doing and who is not cheap. Wouldn't surprise me to learn that you don't have carpenter bees but have an ordinary wasp nest up there and they can get in through some cracks in your soffits.

That's actually what it ended up being: yellowjackets that had crawled through and made a huge nest. The guy estimated between 400-500 living up there. Luckily I had already paid earlier in the year for his extermination fee, so his spraying and dusting of this nest was free.

If it had been carpenter bees, he would have charged another $300