Carpenter bees are nature's answer to the cordless drill. They are incredible drillers and cause significant damage to wooden buildings by burrowing long holes. The bees do not actually eat the wood but drill tunnels as a place to lay eggs. Their preference is to find an old hole and drill further into the wood each year before laying their eggs. Over time, the continued removal of wood causes significant damage and eventual failure of the wooden support. In the forest, bees find old dead wood to drill into and cause no harm at all. Unfortunately our homes and barns are a big target for carpenter bees with an unlimited amount of exposed dry wood for nesting. Picture 2 shows damage in a piece of lumber and picture 3 shows how extensive the nests can be in a piece of firewood.
Carpenter bee traps are not an original idea, but in searching for an instructable, I discovered no one had posted plans. Since I needed to make some traps I thought an instructable was in order. There are many designs and you can google for images to see the variety. Most of them are pretty close to this design.
Carpenter bee traps are not an original idea, but in searching for an instructable, I discovered no one had posted plans. Since I needed to make some traps I thought an instructable was in order. There are many designs and you can google for images to see the variety. Most of them are pretty close to this design.
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The trap is a simple wooden box with 1/2" holes drilled in all 4 sides at an upward angle. Since the bees prefer to use an existing hole, these traps provide the hole they are seeking. Once inside the box, the bees fly toward the light and end up in the plastic water bottle at the bottom. Two things I saw mentioned online were that these bees like an overhanging roof and a sloped side to the box. I included these design elements by providing an oversized roof and angling 2 sides of the box.
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In Oklahoma, they ruined our redwood deck over several years, and they are now working on a new pressure-treated deck. I found that I can hit them fairly often with a BB gun - one day about 5 years ago, I hit over 50 of them in one day. I also came up with a way to build a "shot shell" for use in a pellet gun that works better than a single BB Perhaps that oughta be another instructable. I'll have traps up by next week. Thanks again
I ended up using 20oz Gatorade bottles (like this) for my design. I found that using these, you can get around having to tape or grommet caps together by cutting off the bottoms of both bottles, and then the little divot a third of the way down the bottle will fit into the bottom of the other bottle. This also creates a little baffle to keep the bees from flying back up and into the "house" part of the trap.
Thanks for the great idea. It lacks the stress-relief factor of the tennis racket method, but definitely makes me look less insane to the neighbors.
I have lived in various areas of the U.S., at least, and have never encountered these insects.
What areas of the world have they inhabited?
My best wishes to all of you that are experiencing this terrible attack.
I designed the title so anyone searching for your trap will also find my bottle cap Instructable. I intend to post my variations on the trap design as soon as they prove that they will catch bees.
Unclesam
I am wondering if bees can fly up towards the hole in which it comes in and escape from the trap. Can you please explain ?