Carpenter Bee/Woodpecker Problem!

[oldberkeley]

I live in central Ohio. Last year my wife and I bought a small 1950's ranch-style house, exterior is painted cedar siding.

At all the corners I started seeing small round holes drilled in the wood. At first I thought termites, but after some research I realized it was carpenter bees, and then started noticing the large males (also doing a number on my picnic table but that's no big deal.)

Now we've got downy woodpeckers landing on the house and drilling much larger holes and channels in the siding, looking for the carpenter bee larvae.

My strategy so far: spraying some HD wasp & bee spray into the holes when they appear, filling them with caulk, repainting. Don't know what to do about the woodpeckers!

It's not working. More and more holes and channels appearing this fall, the house corners are starting to look like ****. Help!!! Any ideas much appreciated.

 

[mikegt4]

I fought carpenter bees for years, they are really hard to get rid of. They seem to return to their birthplace to reproduce. I had success by flooding their "tunnels" with old anti freeze to kill the larvae.

If your problem is only on/in removable trim I would replace it. Painting it a color that doesn't look like wood (don't use any sort of brown) seems to confuse them and they move on.

 

[Hmrhead]

Our neighbor had the woodpecker issue as well on his corner trim. He replaced all the corners with PCV trim boards a couple of years ago and the woodpeckers haven't been back.

 

[NoSloCoupes]

Look on the bright side i guess....at least you don't have a woodbee/carpenter pecker problem. The latter could be devastating.

 

[floridafarmer]

Check out this web site and products. They are local to me in central florida but sell these products nationwide to power companies to stop woodpeckers and other animals from damaging the poles and other equipment. I used one of the versions on my stall doors and for the last 5 years - no cribbing or chewing at all - pretty good.

https://www.sniffnstop.com/

 

[grommit]

I also have a cedar house and have fought carpenter bees for years. The only thing I found that works is an airsoft shotgun. You laugh but it works. The kind that shoots three pellets at the same time with one pump, about 30-35 bucks online. If you don't kill the bees they will be back next year with their offspring.
The woodpecker problem is because of the bees. They hear the larvae and drill a BIG hole to get to it. Ever year my problem get a little smaller. 141 kills in the 2015 season.
It'll take a while to get the feel and your going to miss a lot. The pellets don't leave any marks on the wood or gutters (too light). I enjoy the challenge and I find that I'm sad when the last one is gone. Good sport.
LHH

 

[dmlehmann]

As they develop they undergo metamorphoses and form cocoons. The cocoons are resistant to most efforts to kill the bees contained within. You have to poison them as soon as they start to emerge/nest in the spring and plug the holes. Continue doing so though out the summer and the next year spring... Getting rid of an entire generation is the only way to get rid of them and it takes time.

 

[Semohandyman]

This is what works for me.

http://www.rescue.com/product/trapstik-for-wasps

 

[CJ7VFR]

I have the same type of Cedar shake siding with 1x3 facia boards. The damn carpenter bees bored holes in the backsides of the facia boards and made their tunnels in the wood from there.

And the woodpeckers did the same thing to my house. They started boring holes in the facia boards from the outside to get at the bees.

The good side to this? I was able to spray poison into the holes the woodpeckers bored and that killed most of the bees. The bad side is that just as others have said, the bees come back and use the old holes and tunnels again and again.

You have to seal up the bee holes when you find them so the bees can't get in or out. It's best to wait until nighttime and the bees go back into the holes to seal them up. I use regular caulk to seal the holes. I put some on my finger and then press it up behind the facia boards into the holes.

The plan is if the bees can't get out they will die in there after awhile. Once the bees are gone, the woodpeckers will no longer peck holes in your house. So you have to get rid of one to get rid of the other.

One other thing I did to get rid of the bees that had made holes to far up behind the facia boards for me to reach and seal off with the caulk was I bought this powder called Seven from HD to kill them.

I took a paper towel and folded it up a few times to make a flat one inch wide little trough and put a bunch of the Seven on it.

Then I shoved that up behind the facia board right where the bee holes were. This way, as the bees came and went, they would get the powder on themselves and bring it into the tunnels. And by shoving the paper towel trough up into the backside of the facia, it would also stay there and not blow away.

I pulled the towel out about once a week for a month and put on fresh Seven, and then put it back up behind the facia board.

I repaired the woodpecker holes, painted the facia boards and it has been about 3 months now since I saw any carpenter bees or had any of the woodpeckers peck holes in the boards!

Jim

 

[turbowoodworker]

Gotta love the guy that counts his "trophy" bee kills.

 

[DonB]

This will get rid of the bees:
Take a plastic shopping bag and fill it with other shopping bags until 'plump' then tie the handles to close it up. Pick a bag that is as close to the color gray as you can get. Put a thumbtack through the handle and hang it near the problem area, preferably under an overhang. The carpenter bees will think their nemisis....hornets....have moved in and they will move out. Sounds corny but it works!
Don

 

[CJ7VFR]

This will get rid of the bees:
Take a plastic shopping bag and fill it with other shopping bags until 'plump' then tie the handles to close it up. Pick a bag that is as close to the color gray as you can get. Put a thumbtack through the handle and hang it near the problem area, preferably under an overhang. The carpenter bees will think their nemisis....hornets....have moved in and they will move out. Sounds corny but it works!
Don

That is a great idea! And as most people have a collection of plastic bags from places like Walmart and HD, it would be a free and easy attempt at getting rid of the carpenter bees!

Nice!

Jim

 

[rieferman]

Yikes, wood materials as the exterior layer on a home sounds like a nightmare to me. Pests and maintenance galore.

With today's modern alternatives offering a range of very nice aesthetics, along with maintenance benefits, do those with wood siding/trim have arguments that I'm missing for staying with wood and facing an endless battle?