Carpenter Bees Hole Cedar Siding

When carpenter bees emerge in spring and again in fall fill holes with a bit of steel wool a wad of aluminum foil a dowel and wood glue or even caulk.

Carpenter bees hole cedar siding.

How to deal with carpenter bees. The symmetry of the circle is amazing especially given they are making this hole with their mouths. They are egg larva pupal and adult stages. When you caulk holes this large the caulk either shrinks and leaves a depression or it droops from the hole after you get down from the ladder.

They like to make a hole in the decks siding porches doors fences wooden lawn furniture and other wooden things around your living space. The holes that the bees produce are often 1 2 inch or so in diameter. After filling the holes completely paint over them. It sounds like this might be happening at your house.

The adult will bore a hole just under inch round into unpainted unfinished and untreated wooden porches fences and fascia boards to lay eggs. If you read through our carpenter bee control article you ll learn these bees will readily crawl under siding and facia boards to drill nests which will then effectively be hidden and secure. These are most likely the beginnings of roosting or nesting holes. There are carpenter bee holes in the cedar swing the trees and any other exposed wood even painted stained.

I prefer to use wood dowel rods and or latex wood filler. Their hole is commonly very neat. We have tried filling the holes with caulk silicone and the bees rebuilt their hole. If the entry point is close to the ground squirt some powder on the ground.

Thank you for your time. When the bees are sleeping squirt the powdered insecticide from the bottle at the entrance and exit points on the siding. She creates a perfect hole half an inch wide in the wood. This takes a lot of work so sometimes they will use existing holes from years past.

The female carpenter bee is the one who makes the hole by chewing through the wood. Fall is the absolute best time to plug any carpenter bee nests in order to prevent young carpenter bees from emerging and continuing their wood burrowing ways. Spray the powder in the opening of the siding. Instead they burrow into soft woods such as the siding of a house to live in and lay larvae.

A contractor said that he had a cedar sided home and had to take the siding off and replace with brick. Make sure to cover all the points using the marks you used as a reminder. One known method is applying wood putty at a nest s entrance hole. Often these holes go through the siding and into the insulation.

If the bees are already at work on your home. Carpenter bees have 4 life cycles. Holes larger then two inches in diameter may be drilled by the woodpecker into the siding usually between the seam of the two clapboards figure 1.