Just a bit of information for those that might find this interesting.

If you havent been inside or seen the gallery interior of a carpenter bee I found this photo while researching another project for photos.

I am pointing to the bees drill access point as it chewed into the tree. In this case a red cedar tree.A friend in Kansas found this while cutting and splitting some wood. So much for cedar being an insect repellent. You can see how they mud capped the original entry point of the gallery and also sealed off the individual egg chambers.

In most cases locally we find the carpenter bees to be a destructive bee. They can do extensive wood damage over time. Then to add insult to injury once the local woodpeckers find an inhabitated structural site occupied by these little plump bees they tear it up even further to get to the developing larvae or wintering bees.

In this case there are 10 egg chambers.







Above is a completed net exclusion done to prevent any further woodpecker damage to the over head trusses of a boat storage facility. You can see the wood damage from the woodpeckers thru the netting.

Bob, you would think that carpenter bees would make cedar chests and stuff like that. They must all be apprentice carpenter bees.

They sure can make some good cedar frass when they are drilling.The cedar odor can be detected in the air if you are down wind of the activity.

We see all kinds of wood boring insects damaging cedar in the NW.

I always laugh when I hear somebody preaching about the bug resistance in cedar.

I've seen lots of carpenter ants living in old cedar trees.

You need to hire a crew of mason bees to plug the holes.......

Seems to me there was a rock group called Bee Bumble and the Stingers.

hey Bob ,what are you using to treat carpenter bees?Dust or liquid?

We use dust.

Our liquid is labeled for them, but doesn't have the knockdown of the dust.

We use a wettable powder insecticides. But we have used other liquids as well effectively. You get better residual with the wettable powder products. The key is like trapping you must have a good eye for treating the preferred selected gallery areas first to get the best control and prevention possible. Trappers make the best pest applicators in my experience. Much easier to train them with that understanding being conveyed to them from the beginning.

Street folks or non field experienced employees just don't seem to pick up the concept very quickly because they just aren't that good at detail and understanding where these bees prefer to drill in most cases.

I take the straw and push button from a can of WD-40 and put it on a can of wasp killer. Worked fine.