Re: Carpenter bees; how do I get rid of them?
I am in the processing of restaining with a water born semi-transparent stain. I am adding 2 oz of cayenne pepper to 5 gallons of stain. It absolutely works with insects, so I thought that I would give it a try with the Carpenter Bees. Wish me luck. I still have the badminton racquet if this fails!
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
So glad someone brought this up again. The carpenter bees were really working on our deck earlier this season also. It is a carport under it. Every day there would be piles of sawdust on the car.
So I looked around and found this stuff: Citri-Fresh Bee Stop
https://www.amazon.com/Bee-Stop-1-Gallon/dp/B00F761PTW
It is an all natural organic repellent made with citrus and tea tree oils. AND it works! It took about three applications a week or two apart, when the bees started coming back. Since then we have not seen a single one. And it doesn't kill the bees, just protects your deck from them.
I suppose you could do a DIY version, but this was easy. Just pour it into a spray bottle and spray. The only thing is the one gallon seems like a life time supply. I wouldn't be surprised if it needs to be reapplied next year, but being natural oils, I don't know if it would keep like that. Oh well, if I had to spend $30 every year to protect the deck, that isn't terrible.
So I looked around and found this stuff: Citri-Fresh Bee Stop
https://www.amazon.com/Bee-Stop-1-Gallon/dp/B00F761PTW
It is an all natural organic repellent made with citrus and tea tree oils. AND it works! It took about three applications a week or two apart, when the bees started coming back. Since then we have not seen a single one. And it doesn't kill the bees, just protects your deck from them.
I suppose you could do a DIY version, but this was easy. Just pour it into a spray bottle and spray. The only thing is the one gallon seems like a life time supply. I wouldn't be surprised if it needs to be reapplied next year, but being natural oils, I don't know if it would keep like that. Oh well, if I had to spend $30 every year to protect the deck, that isn't terrible.