Battling Wood Bees

 

Battling Wood Bees

 

Homeowners are faced with many battles over the years they own their home. The Wood Bees are a formidable opponent that I have never been able to completely defeat. Here’s my story.

 

 

 

I’m Battling Wood Bees

 

Wood or Carpenter Bees look like bumble bees just flying around and diving at you when you come near them. They are more or less harmless because the males don’t have a stinger. The females can give you a painful sting, but they rarely do unless grabbed or touched like you would if you tried to pick one up. These wood bees are, however, very destructive to wood structures as they bore perfectly round holes in the structural members and then deep into the wood to lay eggs to be hatched. One year later more wood bees hatch to plague us.

 

 

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Heh, heh, heh. another hole in that old mans cedar structural members. This ought to give him the red ass.

 

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Don’t you guys just love being curled up in the old mans cedar beams. It smells so good in here.

 

 

We have been battling these house destroyers for years and yet they come back the next year. I guess if we kill them off at our house, they just move over the next year from the neighbors around us and plague us again. Our house has cedar support beams and they seem to like the cedar better than any other wood. Perhaps it is softer than some of the other woods.

 

 

For a couple of years, we had someone come and spray in every hole they could find. This killed hundreds of the pesky bees and they were laying all over the place. The Bluejays policed up every single one of them in two days as I guess they have a taste for them. This treatment was very expensive and they were right back the next year.

 

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imageHope you bluejays are enjoying your free Wood bee meals. By the way, if you would learn how to catch them out of the air, I would really appreciate it.

 

Now each summer when they show up, we get out our birdie rackets and go to swatting. I have killed as many as 100 in one day by swatting them out of the air with the racket. I have hit two at once on many occasions and one time I even got three with one swat. The neighbors just love this annual wood bee swatting ritual of mine. They stand out in their yards and laugh their asses off at me knocking those flying pests clear out into the street.

 

 

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 I see you buzzing around over there . Get over here a little closer and I’ll swat your wood bee ass clear out in the street.

 

imageDid you see that Pam, I got two of those home wreckers with one swat. Heh, heh, heh.

 

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Come on just a little bit closer and I’ll swat you clear over to my neighbor who’s laughing at me in his front yard. Hey guys did I tell you he just put in a new cedar fence.

 

 

 

imageIf you guys think you can sneak around me in that tree, you’ve got another think coming. I’ll show you my jump shot.

 

 

 

This seems to keep their numbers down, but there is no totally getting rid of them. Our house structural members are so riddled with wood bee holes that one day you may read in the news that an elderly couple was squashed to death in Bartlesville because their own home collapsed on them while they were sleeping.

 

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Thanks for reading Battling Wood Bees,
Bill