Protect Your Log Home From Carpenter Bees Farmington MI

A log home is the ideal target of carpenter bees given the unpainted softwoods such as redwood, pine and cedar which are exposed to all kinds of weather. Log home owners must be vigilant about this type of wood-destroying creatures because they can wreak havoc on the logs over time.

Carpenter bees have the name so-called because they drill almost half an inch holes into the wood causing severe damage in a short span of time. These bees don’t eat wood but only bore holes to make their way inside and dwell.

To control these bees from propagation and cause great damage to your log homes, consider the following steps:

Coat the wood immediately before the bees can find it to stop them from generating periodically.

Since wood staining cannot deter the existence of carpenter bees, application of exterior finishes with oil or polyurethane can do the job effectively.

Spray an insecticide to the exterior of your home every spring time because this is the time that they start to enter and attack. Choose insecticides with a pyrethroid active content. Insecticide in powder form with pyrethroid like the Sevin Dust is also effective to solve the problem. In entrance holes, you can spray Aerosol and wait for a few days to let the bees spread the poison to other bees. Then, cover the hole with a piece of wood coated in glue, caulking or putty.

Apply pesticides such as the Demand CS to extinguish carpenter bees. This solution contains lambda cyhalothrin which is very harmful to these bees. You can also pump Borax in entrance holes. It is toxic to bees and other insects. However, its effect is slow giving time for the bees to cause bigger damage.

Some insect exterminating services explained that merely caulking entrances to be closed is not the ultimate solution because bees can penetrate thru caulking compounds. Experts suggest using steel wool sprayed with insecticides to close the entrance. This will induce the bees to chew on the steel wool for sometime before they escape. Don’t forget to caulk the steel wool hole to prevent rusting as a result of wood aging. This procedure must be done at night to make sure that the bees are inside the wood and will not attack.

Although the carpenter bees cannot be permanently stopped from coming back periodically, by practicing these preventive measures on hand regularly, there is no doubt that you can protect your log home from the destructive carpenter bees.

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