2013 - Volume #BFS, Issue #13, Page #61
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Two Ways To Get Rid Of Carpenter Bees
Carpenter bees drill holes in wood where they nest and lay their eggs, which can be a real problem in any building with exposed wood. This new carpenter bee trap is designed to help eliminate the problem.
  The holes in the Best Carpenter Bee Trap mimic the entrance to a carpenter bee nest, and the bees end up trapped in a plastic soda bottle. No bait or poison is needed.
  The trap is designed to be placed on corners and peaks of buildings, preferably on the sunny side of the building where bee activity is the greatest. It consists of a small wooden house with angled sides and a flat top.
  An empty 20-oz. plastic soda or water bottle is screwed onto the bottom of the trap. Once the bees get inside the trap they want to get out and fly toward the light inside the bottle. To do that they have to go through a little plastic funnel and then down into the bottle. When the bottle gets full of bees you unscrew the bottle, put a cap on it, and replace it with another bottle.
  “It’s the most effective carpenter bee trap on the market,” says inventor Brian Blazer, Heflin, Ala. “The trap has a wire on top so if you want you can hang it from a rafter or the corner of a building.”
  In structures already badly infested with bees, Blazer offers a product called carpenter bee butter. “The bee butter will wipe the bees out due to the active ingredient pymethrin, which is contained inside a clear grease. You inject the grease into the bee’s entrance hole. Any bee that goes into or out of the hole will get grease on it and die.
“It works much better than spraying pymethrin onto the wood because it actually gets the pymethrin on the bee and not just on the wood. It also works better than using pymethrin dust, which has only an 18-day residual before it breaks down. The grease protects the pymethrin so it’ll last more than a year.”
  One bee trap sells for $19.95 ($26 total with S&H included). Bee butter sells for $12.95 ($18 with S&H). One trap with bee butter sells for $38 (S&H included). For an average-size house, Blazer recommends a set of 3 traps and one order of bee butter for $79 (S&H included). Personal checks accepted and you can order online at www.carpenterbeesolutions.com.
  When the first bees get trapped they die inside the trap. The dead bees release a pheromone that attracts more bees to the trap. The bees have a nesting season where the males hover and fight. The females drill holes and lay eggs in the wood, this time of year. The male bee has a yellow dot on his head and cannot sting. The female bee has a solid black head and can sting . So if you put your finger up in the hole she can sting you. Early in the year the bees looking for nest sites are easily trapped. Later when the bees are taking care of larva in the wood, they know where their babies are and take care of them. These bees are more difficult to trap. So this is where it is important to use the bee butter to get rid of the problem. The trap can also be effective in the fall when young bees are looking for a place to spend the winter. Although the bees are most noticeable when the males are fighting over territory, hovering and chasing each other. The bees use the holes throughout the year. The traps do catch bees whenever it is warm enough for them to be flying.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Brian Blazer, 230 County Road 880, Heflin, Ala. 36264 (ph 256 253-2019; blazeranimals@earthlink.net; www.carpenterbeesolutions.com).



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2013 - Volume #BFS, Issue #13