worth1 wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 5:58 pm I've come to the conclusion carpenter bees prefer 1/4 to 5/16 holes.

That's because they don't have any metric drills.

Setec Astronomy wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 6:49 pm

worth1 wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 5:58 pm I've come to the conclusion carpenter bees prefer 1/4 to 5/16 holes.

That's because they don't have any metric drills.

6.5 to 7MM will do.

It is not painted, but they keep nesting in the same holes. I guess I will pain it holes and all, but if I don't plug up the holes they have already made, they keep going in and nesting in the same ones. If I plug it up while there are live nests in there and possibly bees, how much damage will they continue to do and it will kill them anyway eventually. By the time the weather is warm enough to paint they are nesting. They might even be overwintering in there.

I think what I need to do is spray the holes and kill them and then plug up the holes and paint. But I haven't been able to get myself to kill them again.

I have hundreds of honey bees that visit a water source adjacent to my container tomato garden. I don't see any bees of any type on the tomato flowers. I am thankful they stay away because I save seeds and don't want cross pollination. It is a breezy location which probably accounts for most of the pollination. As noted above weather conditions can account for low pollination rates.

I have on occasion used an electric tooth brush to encourage an early set of tomatoes.

Our home is covered with vinyl siding, aluminum flashing and some stucco so no carpenter bee problems. We do have a cabin in the woods in Western PA where I do see some carpenter bees BUT they seem tp prefer unfinished wood and do not bother the actual cabin which is stained and has a water based urethane coating on top of that. Supposedly they do not prefer painted or finished surfaces.

At home I have an unfinished, non pressure treated post and rail fence adjacent to the garden. It is covered with flowering shrubs and it always has a lot of carpenter bees flying around the flowers. I am sure that they have drilled many holes in the fence although because of the shrubs I can not see them. It is not a valuable fence and I will just replace it if it ever falls apart. Something like this may be more attractive to the bees and keep them away from the house.

If you live in an area with carpenter bees and have wood on your house they will probably find it. I would paint any unfinished surfaces and probably set out a "trap crop" of unfinished wood away from the house and try to lure them there and let them live away from the house. There is no way you will ever be able to eliminate all of the carpenter bees in the area of your house. You can kill the ones boring into the wood but new ones will always arrive.

Its the plumber bees that can cause some serious damage.

worth1 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 11:39 am Its the plumber bees that can cause some serious damage.

No kidding, especially when they use a chain saw to bore their holes...

I go out every morning and use my electronic toothbrush regardless I don’t want to miss a hood tomato growing so far I have 30 tomatoes on my mat-su exspresss don’t want risk not getting any haha