I'm from generations of ranchers who did this, works great. There were always 55 gallon drums with 'marinating' fence posts for spring fence repairs. Recycling that oil always had a foot and a half in the bottom of the barrel!
My family has done this for generations (not saying that makes it right just that we do it) even with our cedar fences, though when spraying it we dilute the oil with transmission fluid.
Add 1 qt used oil to 1-2 gal diesel fuel and paint it on at least twice. But don't drill holes, just pour the mix on top. Water will collect in the hole, freeze and split the post more and more each year. We put diesel on all our wagons in the fall to keep freezing water from damaging them. In a week the diesel is all soaked in. Using straight oil won't penetrate enough into the wood. Only problem is common nails pull out easy on oil soaked boards. Ring shank nails and screws hold good and don't rust much. I built a lean to on a ladies shed a few years back. I painted the posts and boards with the diesel mix first, and redone all my cuts.. It still hasn't had any bees. I even coated the galvanized steel roof I put on with Aluminium roof coating. No sense in waiting for a scratch to show rust, and the coating seals the seams.
I have a shelter attached to the side of the barn. The bees are eating into the roof cross beams. I am putting screen wire across the beams to present a physical barrier to them!
If I'm correct, those bees tend to bore clean holes. Latter on, woodpeckers tear up the wood even more to get the bee larvae. They know it's in there. Diesel fuel has a very strong smell. I may experiment with that.
I tried diesel and they still went after it. Only thing i found that works is WOOD PUTTY. Or metal putty either one. Also they don't like a painted surface.. They like RAW WOOD
I use a pump sprayer filled with ORTHO BUG-B-GONE... 1/2 cup per gallon makes a power solution. Just point the tip into the hole one little spritz and they come right out!!! D.O.A. The thing is that you must patrol and catch them early in the season. Works for me...
My dad done that to his Corner fence post. Except for he didn't drill a hole he just took old oil filters and soak them in motor oil and sit them on top of the post.
If people are worried about the little bit of oil on the wood. They should stay out of Texas where they have oil roads. I use that trick around my property to treat outdoor stuff and it works great. I built a trash can rack and stain it with motor oil and it looks brand new after 6 years.
Just a thought for you, I don`t seem to have problems with Hardwood (oak etc.) Sawmill lumber. That is what I built my with, Tin is great for the sides as well as the roof, (used tin for the sides) I have a shed that was built on my property of Pine & the carpenter bees are destroying it. I will do what it takes to get rid of them . I also am a beekeeper so I have more than enough pollinators to replace them. We all need honeybees.
Your fix will probably work for the upright posts, but it ain't gonna work for all the cross planks and siding. Some of these folks have some great ideas that don't involve motor oil.
We use a mix of a 1/3 of pine tar, 1/3 of boiled linseed oil, and a 1/3 of turpentine and mix it to a paint like constancy. Works great to preserve wood from weather and the bugs hate it. Also works great on all your wood handled tools such as axe's, shovels, hoe's and rakes etc. your wood handled toolswill last a lot longer and you will have fewer blisters on your hands.
Build a sacrificial A frame for them to play on. When they've eaten it away, it will fall and you put up a new one. It might help you get extra working time to treat the barn. Good luck.
I had home depot give away 5 gal buckets of tar. In texas where I live we have several types of ants so i tar my post before it goes in the ground helps them from routing and the ants, bees from getting in them same thing good luck
I love that idea. The bees come back every year and they are destroying my deck. I was sitting on my deck and saw dust fall from the ceiling and I looked up and saw the bee in the hole. This has to stop.
I use a spray made with pyrethrum. It is derived from the chrysanthemum plant or “ mums” as the flowers are called. Saturate all wood surfaces with a pump sprayer. It does have to be reapplied every year. It kills them when they chew it before they get too deep with their holes. Eventually the populations drop and you have less & less problems over the years. Don’t like killing them, but I can’t let them eat my house. I’ve tried other methods and this is the only thing that worked well. I’ve found that they will drill through painted or stained wood regardless, but they like the softer woods like pine & cedar. Treated wood is less likely to be effected by them.
1 cup kerosene to 1 gallon used motor oil equal rail road tie sealer. Kero makes it soak in. It's very effective at preserving the wood. Thank you for your VIDEO
Wood Burns too. I bet you could throw lit matches at that post all day and it wouldn't burn. You ever tried lighting a 4x4 post? His main problem is drilling a hole which will turn into a water hole that will freeze and crack the post.
Good for the posts, but the joists for hay loft etc suffer.....our hay loft fell in after being loaded...turns out the bees had tunneled into the joists which weakened them......what a mess to deal with....where I can reach, I spray WD 40 into the holes...kills them quick, but in the high areas of the barn, it is hard to reach
Carpenter Bees don't eat wood, they just nest in it. That's why it's so hard to deter them with paints and other wood treatments- they don't much care what the wood tastes like because they're not going to swallow it, just bite through it and spit it out. Furthermore, if old nests exist and are in good condition they'll happily reuse them for years and years rather than boring fresh ones. In suburban environments the damage they do is negligible because their population is capped by available food sources and once they've established a few nests they just keep reusing them without needing to do additional damage. But I guess out in the countryside where there's plenty of flowers to feed them their numbers can get so high they start to really noticeably perforate your structures. If you're not expecting the overall carpenter bee population in the area to change much anytime soon then you might get desirable results if you try deliberately setting out ideal nesting material for them that they can reuse every year so that bothering with boring holes in your buildings isn't worth the hassle to them.
my grandmother always used oil on fence posts to keep them from rotting. Like you said maybe not the best but it works. interested to see what ideas you get.
@@tadiwamoto2631 I don't know the science behind it. It is basically like a treated post. The fungi that break down the wood can't live in the oil. It will kill the grass wherever the oil gets on the ground. This is not the most ecologically friendly thing to do. This is what people did 60 plus years ago.
I will more than glad to send you some. I have put out traps but the best since I am retired is to sit in the shade of the carport and hit them with a badminton racket
Very interesting. Our condo association will not do anything to prevent Carpenter bees. The area they're nesting in is too high for a 24' foot ladder to reach. Mainly due to the awkwardness of the stairs. My only option is a trap hanging off somewhere. I can't even mount a trap to the wall or wood.
I just replaced 30' of 1" x 12" cedar fascia boards on my log home. The cedar was riddled with carpenter bee holes. Yes, kids, carpenter bees love cedar. In between the fascia replacement, I had the old and replacement boards on saw horses. Within a couple days, the bees were boring into the new wood. I stained the new boards with the products I'd recently stained my log home with ("Weather Gard" and "Bee Gone" additive), before nailing up the fascia. It appears that carpenter bees continue the return to the log home, but in fewer numbers and with less aggression now that it's freshly stained and treated. My great grand father told me, they used to paint the barns (northwestern Pa.) with used engine oil. Once finished, the black/carbon in the old oil provided a great backdrop for the old "CHEW MAIL POUCH TOBACCO" signage we've seen on the old barn structures.
So, I know someone who uses the tennis racket method. They step out on the back porch under the deck and swat the buggers, launching them into the woods.
I have the tennis racket with batteries that I use if fruit flies get in the kitchen. Still a manual operation for the swatting, but when you make contact, it sizzles them. I have to admit, there's a certain satisfaction to it.
Most of the time when we hit them with the tennis racket, it only knocks them down and stuns them. If we don't run and step on them, they get up and fly away and then come right back. You have to hit them really really hard to kill them.
@@bsofar1675 Our bees are very fast ..... think they figured it out ! It takes hours to get perhaps two lousy bees... and yes, I go and step on them, VERY HARD & growl when I do it ={ grrrr !
I use badminton racket cuz it is lighter so your swing is faster and dies kill them. Got 35 on porch last year. Put their corpses in an old paint can so I can enjoy seeing them dead
How about using a heavy concentration of borax, (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax), and water, in the same manner as the oil. Borax is a natural element and I have seen, in the past, log home companies that "soak" the logs in an effort to create insect resistant logs. This might be the more "natural" way?
I was taught that sump oil is nasty toxic carcinogenic stuff, full of products of overheating and wear of the components of an engine. But we don't have carpenter bees here, just termites, and we don't put timber where they might get to it in the first place.
All the externals of my buildings are concrete, cement sheet, steel, or a bit of plastic roofing. So my house, the actual building is stud frame, but it's on a concrete slab that is clearly visible all the way around, and the cement sheet weatherboards are very carefully bonded at the bottom and all corners and joins. Then the verandah framing is all steel. And the sheds are all steel too, again I have a timber framed partition wall in one but it's on a concrete floor and lined with cement sheet. The doors and windows on my house are timber, but they're well painted and things'd have to be pretty bad to have termites eat a door without us noticing. There are almost certainly termites in my firewood heap, I have plans to put that in a proper shed one day but I can't afford it yet. Firewood is a bit precious to leave it for termites to munch on. But the inside of my firewood cupboard is lined with cement sheet and ceramic tiles, and I inspect it regularly too.
I am not against this type of prevention. Right now I’m contemplating buying a 30 year old log home with property that has been empty off and on for at least a year here and there. I haven’t had the opportunity to look at it yet since it’s in another state but I’m hoping to get a chance to look at it in a few more weeks to really inspect it for carpenter bee damage. I am also pretty fearful about the amount of work just in trying to keep these bees out of my home. I’m like you I don’t take pleasure in killing them or spraying but you also have to protect your home. It’s a definite catch 22
For a dwelling, check with the homeowner's insurance first. I would hate to see coverage denied due to something like this. Our old barn isn't as critical as your house.
Hum, since the carpenter bee traps have not been attracting the bees at our three buildings I may need to try this. What to do when you have no access to the top of beams or posts?
We have used pump sprayers to coat siding and other beams. I am working on using the small irrigation hose to "plumb" the rafters in the barn from a 5 gallon bucket of oil at the top.
And ends up in your aquifer. Oil is a mile down below the surface, that's where it comes from. Dumping oil on the ground or any other chemical like antifreeze ends up in water long before it gets a mile down. Well water can be 50 feet to 700 foot down below the surface. Motor oil dumped on the ground will never reach the original place it came from, it ends up in your own water.
@@TheWindTurbineKing no aquifer here our well water is in solid bed rock or a stream n a gravel layer they oiled roads for many years, now the spray down liquid tar and spread pee gravel on top well its hot.. rail ways spray there ties and switches with oil, all the years i work in logging, a hole is dug. when the engen oil needed servicing, and hydrolic oils need changing, all services are done over the hole, and dumped, when the construction job is done or a logging site is done, the hole is back filled.. it is filtered though dirt, sand long before it reaches anything,, go hug some trees..
@Ryke Haven Here's one for ya Ryke, i lived next to Cadillac Michigan, a place where antifreeze was made for years and dumped on the ground by the company that made it. The company closed it's doors and guess what ? antifreeze was now in the cities aqua fur, there drinking water. It would kill you to drink it and you couldn't bath in it either. They are unable to clean it up and they company was going to do nothing about it. Cadillac took them to Federal court . Cadillac ran out of money to fight the antifreeze company. So it will never reach your drinking water? Think again.
Use a tank type vacuum cleaner with a long hose, vacuum them off the flowers don't bother the other bees let them do their job. This way you are keeping the population down along with the damage they do . Also use traps Lowes has them, or make them, they work have them hanging all around my property. The use of oil works but its a mess. Paint exposed wood paint keeps them out.
i agree with this method. on the other lengthy processes! grow a poo ton of chrysanthemums! i am altering a method i seen for pest control for gardening. then dry um of fresh! add them to mineral oil. Pyrethrum is made from chrysanthemums which is use for pest control. mineral oil is also used for pest control. heat up the mineral oil and steep the chrysanthemums in the oil for a good spell! so the goody can mix! then do the same thing that is being done in this vid. here is a more natural way of doing it.
couldnt say the name right since i was a kid, so i hear ya!! LOL!! im going to try this for my garden. the origanals are to make a tea of chrysanthemums and water. Mineral oil by its self. so i thought about how home made essential oils are made. so why not try it i thought. then you posted this vid, so why not share the possibility.
As a bee keeper I do not agree, this is a toxin to humans animals and insects, If you rely want to go with mineral oils use tea tree oil. Its a natural repellent .
Oh, did not know that. I'm still learning. Thank you so much for your videos. We're still in the "planning" phase and your information has already proven quite valuable. Especially on what to look for when buying land. :D
That would be something that you would need to discuss with your agent. Probably would need to discuss storage of gas cans, oil cans, etc in your barn too.
Way i did it is wood putty, at night add wood putty to there holes so it harden up at night> next day they can't get in there holes and leave > The trap works the bottle traps, but they don't get em all> The wood traps works even better than the bottle ones> SO FOLKS, USE THICK WOOD PUTTY INTO THERE HOLES AT NIGHT They start chewing a new hole > cap it with wood putty> ONLY WAY I DID IT i tried ever thing
@@user-ck3fc4ev3d Some times they do. If its wet> Make it THICK! Almost a dough ball, put it into the hole. Do it at night time with a flash light. When there gone! It will dry out over night > ITS ROCK HARD
I caught a bee 🐝 in my wood frame porch and put a piece of duct tape over the hole and watched it for a few days. Two day later he was gone left a hole in the tape pu
Seems like it would work on a new construction project. And as you say only enough for it to leach into the wood, I think this is better than spraying on the outside from an environmental perspective. I guess you’ve got to weigh out clean wood that lasts a couple years, then cut down more trees to rebuild. Or build and treat something that will last 20 years or so and will leach out minimal contaminants. My house and garage are nearly 100 years old, painted, and cedar. I need something I can basically put in my sprayer to treat the entire surface without discoloring the surface. I’m not sure there is a correct answer.
I’m constantly fighting carpenter bees, but I would not add a fire accelerant to a structure as a deterrent to the bees. Do you have cedars on your property? It’s extremely rare to see bee holes in a cedar post.
If you’ve done any searching on YT, you can build the bee traps. Bees are eating my porch up. If you want to make a sport of it, I saw a few ppl here shoot them with BB guns. Little vagards are a bitch it hit but that’s what makes it a sport.
Comments below reveal lots of ranchers / farmers use this for their fence posts, one remarked it helps them last EVEN 10 years !!! HELLO = My husband built our {horse fence} with a few cedar posts, which lasted more than 35 years (got photos to prove it =all what I'm saying) and all the rest were locust wood ! That was close to fifty years ago.... maybe even more.... THEY ARE STILL IN THE GROUND AND SOLID ! ! ! Our pasture ground has a lot of gravel so it does claim good drainage! LOCUST is best, but you can't drive a nail into it after it 'seasons' some ! Perhaps a strong clever carpenter has a secret, but I sure can't ! We just 'patch' the old wire to keep it working! If we still had our horses I'd be fixing wood boards onto it instead of the old wire. It must have been the Lord that kept them healthy, uninjured and safe. My favorite died at almost 48 !!! And one of the mares was an escape artist. If she couldn't crawl under or through, she'd climb over 5 or so strands. And never got hurt!
That's what we use on our little barn to fight termites and powder post beetles. There's a commercial variety called "Timbor" made specifically for this purpose. Or you can mix your own with water / borax and put it in a pump sprayer.
I just recently had some bees going on my rafters in my car port that is made with, I think, unfinished poles. I got frustrated about fighting the bees to get to my car, which was covered in bee dust. I had heard that dish soap and water would kill a wasp, so I got some and just sprayed all the holes I could get to. Haven't seen anymore bees in about 48 hours. I hope that did the trick, but it seems like it worked.
So oil spills are alright? Gasoline comes from oil. Arsenic comes from the earth as does radiation. I'd bet if you sprayed a bee with oil, it would not agree. That said, I don't think how he is using it will hurt anything.
Carpenter bees are not pollinators except by accident I use traps and try to caulk up all holes used to use chloridan worked great for forty years but not now
Now THAT i would try ! I don't like the idea of soaking my house in carcinogenic / highly inflammable oils ! And I will check out the Thompson's water seal. All this after we re-stain our log house .....and pray it outlives us. We built it about 50 years ago.... The bees came just a couple of years ago. Weird ! BUT I WILL first see exactly what Noah put on the ark !
Are you not worried about self-ignition? If you leave a bunch of oil-soaked rags in a can, they will self ignite, so I think you can imagine what I'm getting at with you pouring motor oil into dry wood. *Huge* fire hazard.
INF1D3L010 not worried. It is a completely different scenario. Self ignition requires the oxidizing oils to reach combustion temperature. That is why the oily rags have to be in a pile so the heat can’t escape. You could leave an oily rag out by itself and it would never combust. The barn wood will never be able to trap heat to the point of combustion and once the oxidation is complete then there is zero heat production. It is similar to why railroad ties don’t randomly self ignite.
Fair enough. I would have thought the oil that soaks into the core of the wood maybe near the bottom might be able to get to combustion temperatures, but I'm no expert anyways.
The BEST thing to use is CEDAR OIL,instead of motor oil,the carpenter bees hate cedar wood.(nothing bothers cedar)🐝💨___🌲(I'm outta here!!)And it completely natural,so its much safer to use.
The people who whine don't think about the contaminants produced and energy wasted when treated lumber is produced. They are the ones who think electricity is produced by a team of unicorns on treadmills.
Love the oil. I soak the bottoms of fence post in barrel of motor oil and transmission fluid they last for years. At least ten years.
I'm from generations of ranchers who did this, works great. There were always 55 gallon drums with 'marinating' fence posts for spring fence repairs. Recycling that oil always had a foot and a half in the bottom of the barrel!
we always used burned oil mixed with half diesel fuel. roll it on with a paint roller on your siding. its not as messy.
My family has done this for generations (not saying that makes it right just that we do it) even with our cedar fences, though when spraying it we dilute the oil with transmission fluid.
Add 1 qt used oil to 1-2 gal diesel fuel and paint it on at least twice. But don't drill holes, just pour the mix on top. Water will collect in the hole, freeze and split the post more and more each year. We put diesel on all our wagons in the fall to keep freezing water from damaging them. In a week the diesel is all soaked in. Using straight oil won't penetrate enough into the wood. Only problem is common nails pull out easy on oil soaked boards. Ring shank nails and screws hold good and don't rust much. I built a lean to on a ladies shed a few years back. I painted the posts and boards with the diesel mix first, and redone all my cuts.. It still hasn't had any bees. I even coated the galvanized steel roof I put on with Aluminium roof coating. No sense in waiting for a scratch to show rust, and the coating seals the seams.
Nice work!! Thanks for the tip! 🐝🌻😀👍
I have a shelter attached to the side of the barn. The bees are eating into the roof cross beams. I am putting screen wire across the beams to present a physical barrier to them!
thank you going to try I have a 12x20 shed Amish build out of ruff cut pine and those darn bees are a pest
If I'm correct, those bees tend to bore clean holes. Latter on, woodpeckers tear up the wood even more to get the bee larvae. They know it's in there. Diesel fuel has a very strong smell. I may experiment with that.
I tried diesel and they still went after it. Only thing i found that works is WOOD PUTTY. Or metal putty either one. Also they don't like a painted surface.. They like RAW WOOD
@@426superbee4 ...I noticed that, too. They avoid painted surfaces.
@@BonafideToolJunkie Yep 😉
I use a pump sprayer filled with ORTHO BUG-B-GONE... 1/2 cup per gallon makes a power solution. Just point the tip into the hole
one little spritz and they come right out!!! D.O.A. The thing is that you must patrol and catch them early in the season. Works for me...
My dad done that to his Corner fence post. Except for he didn't drill a hole he just took old oil filters and soak them in motor oil and sit them on top of the post.
If people are worried about the little bit of oil on the wood. They should stay out of Texas where they have oil roads.
I use that trick around my property to treat outdoor stuff and it works great. I built a trash can rack and stain it with motor oil and it looks brand new after 6 years.
Just a thought for you, I don`t seem to have problems with Hardwood (oak etc.) Sawmill lumber. That is what I built my with, Tin is great for the sides as well as the roof, (used tin for the sides) I have a shed that was built on my property of Pine & the carpenter bees are destroying it. I will do what it takes to get rid of them . I also am a beekeeper so I have more than enough pollinators to replace them. We all need honeybees.
Skip to 4:15 Used Motor Oil & Diesel Fuel ⛽️ mixed 70/30, 60/40, or 50/50.
Applied liberally or let soak.
Your fix will probably work for the upright posts, but it ain't gonna work for all the cross planks and siding. Some of these folks have some great ideas that don't involve motor oil.
We use a mix of a 1/3 of pine tar, 1/3 of boiled linseed oil, and a 1/3 of turpentine and mix it to a paint like constancy. Works great to preserve wood from weather and the bugs hate it. Also works great on all your wood handled tools such as axe's, shovels, hoe's and rakes etc. your wood handled toolswill last a lot longer and you will have fewer blisters on your hands.
Lots of responsible uses for your waste products.....good for the pocket and assets.....what was used on the ark...?......best advice ever.....
Thanks !!! Time to check Genesis ............ should have thought of that before !!!
Build a sacrificial A frame for them to play on. When they've eaten it away, it will fall and you put up a new one. It might help you get extra working time to treat the barn. Good luck.
Then have a nice bonfire with the old structure everytime you're ready to put up the new sacrificial structure. Thins the herd!
Yes sir.. Used oil works for a lot of things. We used oil to keep the dogs and cats from getting fleas and ticks.
Can it hurt them how do you use on dogs and cats pls tell me!I have a problem with this! Tks!
@@margaretlarriva4573 food grade diatomaceous earth might help you
@@margaretlarriva4573 olive and lemon oil
I had home depot give away 5 gal buckets of tar. In texas where I live we have several types of ants so i tar my post before it goes in the ground helps them from routing and the ants, bees from getting in them same thing good luck
I love that idea. The bees come back every year and they are destroying my deck. I was sitting on my deck and saw dust fall from the ceiling and I looked up and saw the bee in the hole. This has to stop.
Same i was confused as hell when i came out and there was two big piles of sawdust lol
I use a spray made with pyrethrum. It is derived from the chrysanthemum plant or “ mums” as the flowers are called. Saturate all wood surfaces with a pump sprayer. It does have to be reapplied every year. It kills them when they chew it before they get too deep with their holes. Eventually the populations drop and you have less & less problems over the years. Don’t like killing them, but I can’t let them eat my house. I’ve tried other methods and this is the only thing that worked well. I’ve found that they will drill through painted or stained wood regardless, but they like the softer woods like pine & cedar. Treated wood is less likely to be effected by them.
1 cup kerosene to 1 gallon used motor oil equal rail road tie sealer. Kero makes it soak in. It's very effective at preserving the wood. Thank you for your VIDEO
I don't really have a different solution but I do have a concern about the oil saturated wood becoming a fire hazard.
Wood Burns too. I bet you could throw lit matches at that post all day and it wouldn't burn. You ever tried lighting a 4x4 post? His main problem is drilling a hole which will turn into a water hole that will freeze and crack the post.
The dried out board is itself, a fire hazard...
dry wood will light up faster that the saturated wood
Good for the posts, but the joists for hay loft etc suffer.....our hay loft fell in after being loaded...turns out the bees had tunneled into the joists which weakened them......what a mess to deal with....where I can reach, I spray WD 40 into the holes...kills them quick, but in the high areas of the barn, it is hard to reach
Carpenter Bees don't eat wood, they just nest in it. That's why it's so hard to deter them with paints and other wood treatments- they don't much care what the wood tastes like because they're not going to swallow it, just bite through it and spit it out. Furthermore, if old nests exist and are in good condition they'll happily reuse them for years and years rather than boring fresh ones. In suburban environments the damage they do is negligible because their population is capped by available food sources and once they've established a few nests they just keep reusing them without needing to do additional damage. But I guess out in the countryside where there's plenty of flowers to feed them their numbers can get so high they start to really noticeably perforate your structures. If you're not expecting the overall carpenter bee population in the area to change much anytime soon then you might get desirable results if you try deliberately setting out ideal nesting material for them that they can reuse every year so that bothering with boring holes in your buildings isn't worth the hassle to them.
Good point.
my grandmother always used oil on fence posts to keep them from rotting. Like you said maybe not the best but it works. interested to see what ideas you get.
How does oil keep the fence posts from rotting. What about away from the posts? Thanks.
@@tadiwamoto2631 I don't know the science behind it. It is basically like a treated post. The fungi that break down the wood can't live in the oil. It will kill the grass wherever the oil gets on the ground. This is not the most ecologically friendly thing to do. This is what people did 60 plus years ago.
I had never heard of carpenter bees. Very interesting episode.
I will more than glad to send you some. I have put out traps but the best since I am retired is to sit in the shade of the carport and hit them with a badminton racket
Too bad that, like carpenter ants, their name is misleading. Ought to call them demolition bees and demolition ants!!!
Very interesting. Our condo association will not do anything to prevent Carpenter bees. The area they're nesting in is too high for a 24' foot ladder to reach. Mainly due to the awkwardness of the stairs. My only option is a trap hanging off somewhere. I can't even mount a trap to the wall or wood.
Great idea
I just replaced 30' of 1" x 12" cedar fascia boards on my log home. The cedar was riddled with carpenter bee holes. Yes, kids, carpenter bees love cedar. In between the fascia replacement, I had the old and replacement boards on saw horses. Within a couple days, the bees were boring into the new wood. I stained the new boards with the products I'd recently stained my log home with ("Weather Gard" and "Bee Gone" additive), before nailing up the fascia. It appears that carpenter bees continue the return to the log home, but in fewer numbers and with less aggression now that it's freshly stained and treated. My great grand father told me, they used to paint the barns (northwestern Pa.) with used engine oil. Once finished, the black/carbon in the old oil provided a great backdrop for the old "CHEW MAIL POUCH TOBACCO" signage we've seen on the old barn structures.
they apparently hate citrus . so orange oil would work as well, and be organic I think. I may give that a shot.
So, I know someone who uses the tennis racket method. They step out on the back porch under the deck and swat the buggers, launching them into the woods.
I have the tennis racket with batteries that I use if fruit flies get in the kitchen. Still a manual operation for the swatting, but when you make contact, it sizzles them. I have to admit, there's a certain satisfaction to it.
Most of the time when we hit them with the tennis racket, it only knocks them down and stuns them. If we don't run and step on them, they get up and fly away and then come right back. You have to hit them really really hard to kill them.
This is good to know. What if our friend was launching them into the woods, and the same bees were recovering and coming back for more.
@@bsofar1675 Our bees are very fast ..... think they figured it out ! It takes hours to get perhaps
two lousy bees... and yes, I go and step on them, VERY HARD & growl when I do it ={
grrrr !
I use badminton racket cuz it is lighter so your swing is faster and dies kill them. Got 35 on porch last year. Put their corpses in an old paint can so I can enjoy seeing them dead
I have made always carpenter bee traps with a water bottle. Disadvantage is , killing polinators.
Interesting solution.
How about using a heavy concentration of borax, (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax), and water, in the same manner as the oil. Borax is a natural element and I have seen, in the past, log home companies that "soak" the logs in an effort to create insect resistant logs. This might be the more "natural" way?
I used old combine oil for all my barn wood. My father used it and now I use old use oil. No carperter bees or termites
I was taught that sump oil is nasty toxic carcinogenic stuff, full of products of overheating and wear of the components of an engine. But we don't have carpenter bees here, just termites, and we don't put timber where they might get to it in the first place.
what do you mean you don't put timber where they can get into it????
All the externals of my buildings are concrete, cement sheet, steel, or a bit of plastic roofing. So my house, the actual building is stud frame, but it's on a concrete slab that is clearly visible all the way around, and the cement sheet weatherboards are very carefully bonded at the bottom and all corners and joins. Then the verandah framing is all steel. And the sheds are all steel too, again I have a timber framed partition wall in one but it's on a concrete floor and lined with cement sheet.
The doors and windows on my house are timber, but they're well painted and things'd have to be pretty bad to have termites eat a door without us noticing.
There are almost certainly termites in my firewood heap, I have plans to put that in a proper shed one day but I can't afford it yet. Firewood is a bit precious to leave it for termites to munch on. But the inside of my firewood cupboard is lined with cement sheet and ceramic tiles, and I inspect it regularly too.
It may work great on virtual wood, but what about horizontal wood? Most of my bees go after diagonal & horizontal wood.
I would also spray the outside down with a 50-50 mixture of diesel and motor oil.
They don't eat the wood. It's not that the wood isn't tasty, it's that the wood will be moist with oil and harder to dig
You can Use Hot Pepper Oil or Pepper Mint Oil to,
Answer at 5:00
Wd-40 works great for spot treatment.
Man , such a simple idea. Love it. Off to drill some 1,1/8" holes!
That bore bees comment was funny.
I am not against this type of prevention. Right now I’m contemplating buying a 30 year old log home with property that has been empty off and on for at least a year here and there. I haven’t had the opportunity to look at it yet since it’s in another state but I’m hoping to get a chance to look at it in a few more weeks to really inspect it for carpenter bee damage. I am also pretty fearful about the amount of work just in trying to keep these bees out of my home. I’m like you I don’t take pleasure in killing them or spraying but you also have to protect your home. It’s a definite catch 22
For a dwelling, check with the homeowner's insurance first. I would hate to see coverage denied due to something like this. Our old barn isn't as critical as your house.
Hum, since the carpenter bee traps have not been attracting the bees at our three buildings I may need to try this. What to do when you have no access to the top of beams or posts?
We have used pump sprayers to coat siding and other beams. I am working on using the small irrigation hose to "plumb" the rafters in the barn from a 5 gallon bucket of oil at the top.
Kill some bees and put them in the trap. Worked for me after doing that
I been using old oil on everything all my life, it comes from the ground it go back to the ground
I use it for everything. Fence posts, horse hooves, I even will fry eggs in it in a pinch.
And ends up in your aquifer. Oil is a mile down below the surface, that's where it comes from. Dumping oil on the ground or any other chemical like antifreeze ends up in water long before it gets a mile down. Well water can be 50 feet to 700 foot down below the surface. Motor oil dumped on the ground will never reach the original place it came from, it ends up in your own water.
@@TheWindTurbineKing no aquifer here our well water is in solid bed rock or a stream n a gravel layer they oiled roads for many years, now the spray down liquid tar and spread pee gravel on top well its hot.. rail ways spray there ties and switches with oil, all the years i work in logging, a hole is dug. when the engen oil needed servicing, and hydrolic oils need changing, all services are done over the hole, and dumped, when the construction job is done or a logging site is done, the hole is back filled.. it is filtered though dirt, sand long before it reaches anything,, go hug some trees..
@Ryke Haven And 2 idiots just spoke.
@Ryke Haven Here's one for ya Ryke, i lived next to Cadillac Michigan, a place where antifreeze was made for years and dumped on the ground by the company that made it. The company closed it's doors and guess what ? antifreeze was now in the cities aqua fur, there drinking water. It would kill you to drink it and you couldn't bath in it either. They are unable to clean it up and they company was going to do nothing about it. Cadillac took them to Federal court . Cadillac ran out of money to fight the antifreeze company. So it will never reach your drinking water? Think again.
Use a tank type vacuum cleaner with a long hose, vacuum them off the flowers don't bother the other bees let them do their job. This way you are keeping the population down along with the damage they do . Also use traps Lowes has them, or make them, they work have them hanging all around my property. The use of oil works but its a mess. Paint exposed wood paint keeps them out.
How do the posts react to increase combustibility? Seems it may be creating torches if fire gets close.
That is a fabulous idea thank you.
What about a oil based paint... would that work?
Will this as well help with rot prevention??
Yes, it will definitely allow the posts to last longer.
Has it worked? Any update video?
The parts I have done, yes. The little buggers are eating the purlins on the roof. Never thought they would do that.
I see tons of comments about putting oil and stuff on it and i wonder ... Isnt that an insane fire rosk?
i agree with this method. on the other lengthy processes! grow a poo ton of chrysanthemums! i am altering a method i seen for pest control for gardening. then dry um of fresh! add them to mineral oil. Pyrethrum is made from chrysanthemums which is use for pest control. mineral oil is also used for pest control. heat up the mineral oil and steep the chrysanthemums in the oil for a good spell! so the goody can mix! then do the same thing that is being done in this vid. here is a more natural way of doing it.
Sounds very interesting. I will have to check that out. I just have to learn how to say chrysanthemums correctly :)
couldnt say the name right since i was a kid, so i hear ya!! LOL!! im going to try this for my garden. the origanals are to make a tea of chrysanthemums and water. Mineral oil by its self. so i thought about how home made essential oils are made. so why not try it i thought. then you posted this vid, so why not share the possibility.
As a bee keeper I do not agree, this is a toxin to humans animals and insects, If you rely want to go with mineral oils use tea tree oil. Its a natural repellent .
Would another oil work? Like linseed oil or tung oil?
I work with both in the woodshop and it has a setup time. Once it hardens, it will no longer soak into the wood.
Oh, did not know that. I'm still learning. Thank you so much for your videos. We're still in the "planning" phase and your information has already proven quite valuable. Especially on what to look for when buying land. :D
just don't let the EPA find out, big fines/clean up costs, id love to paint my deck, but one bad neighbor and boom...
Would insurance companies void you're policy because they believe this poses a fire hazard ?
That would be something that you would need to discuss with your agent. Probably would need to discuss storage of gas cans, oil cans, etc in your barn too.
Smart and different. Thanks for sharing
You would have to do that to all you wood.. Great idea that was the only location.
Way i did it is wood putty, at night add wood putty to there holes so it harden up at night> next day they can't get in there holes and leave > The trap works the bottle traps, but they don't get em all> The wood traps works even better than the bottle ones> SO FOLKS, USE THICK WOOD PUTTY INTO THERE HOLES AT NIGHT They start chewing a new hole > cap it with wood putty> ONLY WAY I DID IT i tried ever thing
Awesome tip!
They bore right thru our wood putty.
@@user-ck3fc4ev3d Some times they do. If its wet> Make it THICK! Almost a dough ball, put it into the hole. Do it at night time with a flash light. When there gone! It will dry out over night > ITS ROCK HARD
I caught a bee 🐝 in my wood frame porch and put a piece of duct tape over the hole and watched it for a few days. Two day later he was gone left a hole in the tape pu
if you will take a torch all around each board then paint it with linseed oil this will last for a life time.
Seems like it would work on a new construction project. And as you say only enough for it to leach into the wood, I think this is better than spraying on the outside from an environmental perspective. I guess you’ve got to weigh out clean wood that lasts a couple years, then cut down more trees to rebuild. Or build and treat something that will last 20 years or so and will leach out minimal contaminants. My house and garage are nearly 100 years old, painted, and cedar. I need something I can basically put in my sprayer to treat the entire surface without discoloring the surface. I’m not sure there is a correct answer.
Good idea ill try it
It's completely inviromently safe...burning it wouldn't be.
WD40 and research bryans bee butter. Make your own. The Bee butter is the best ive found but you cant buy it now.
I’m constantly fighting carpenter bees, but I would not add a fire accelerant to a structure as a deterrent to the bees. Do you have cedars on your property? It’s extremely rare to see bee holes in a cedar post.
We have no cedar.
all the posts in our barn are cedar, the bees are turning them to swiss cheese.
What do you recommend for trusses and overhangs, man they are eating my shed and house out! Im In E. Ky
If you’ve done any searching on YT, you can build the bee traps. Bees are eating my porch up. If you want to make a sport of it, I saw a few ppl here shoot them with BB guns. Little vagards are a bitch it hit but that’s what makes it a sport.
Comments below reveal lots of ranchers / farmers use this for their fence posts, one remarked it helps them
last EVEN 10 years !!! HELLO = My husband built our {horse fence} with a few cedar posts, which lasted
more than 35 years (got photos to prove it =all what I'm saying) and all the rest were locust wood ! That was
close to fifty years ago.... maybe even more.... THEY ARE STILL IN THE GROUND AND SOLID ! ! ! Our pasture
ground has a lot of gravel so it does claim good drainage! LOCUST is best, but you can't drive a nail into it after it 'seasons' some ! Perhaps a strong clever carpenter has a secret, but I sure can't ! We just 'patch' the old wire to keep it working! If we still had our horses I'd be fixing wood boards onto it instead of the old wire.
It must have been the Lord that kept them healthy, uninjured and safe. My favorite died at almost 48 !!! And
one of the mares was an escape artist. If she couldn't crawl under or through, she'd climb over 5 or so strands. And never got hurt!
Interesting
What about a water/borax soap mixture, applied with a sprayer and let dry? Supposedly it works on termites, or so I've been told
That's what we use on our little barn to fight termites and powder post beetles. There's a commercial variety called "Timbor" made specifically for this purpose. Or you can mix your own with water / borax and put it in a pump sprayer.
Oak Knob Farm that's kinda the way ii was leaning. Makes sense
I just recently had some bees going on my rafters in my car port that is made with, I think, unfinished poles. I got frustrated about fighting the bees to get to my car, which was covered in bee dust. I had heard that dish soap and water would kill a wasp, so I got some and just sprayed all the holes I could get to. Haven't seen anymore bees in about 48 hours. I hope that did the trick, but it seems like it worked.
I think it,s good / gave 4 gallons to farmer for her goat shed .even better check out Sneak 66 .
That is exactly what my grandaddy did
If there is a wildfire nearby, evacuate to another city
Wildfires destroy barns and other buildings
especially oil and diesel soaked ones
Are you using synthetic oil? And does it work the same?
It is actually a mixture of both. My Silverado takes synthetic and the farm equipment doesn't. I don't see a difference.
Thank you. Hey, ya could paint *shudders* your barn
Good idea
Does it work like creosol? Can you still by that stuff?
Pretty much the same treatment they do to railroad ties and power poles.
Oil is from the earth so ? Also it’s BEE friendly !
So oil spills are alright? Gasoline comes from oil. Arsenic comes from the earth as does radiation. I'd bet if you sprayed a bee with oil, it would not agree. That said, I don't think how he is using it will hurt anything.
lastniceguy1 what I meant was the scent of the oil will keep them away and he’s not pouring gallons into the earth or water table !
Gotcha, buddy. ;o)
Try liquid creosote with a hand brush. Wear long sleeve shirt and gloves.
used motor oil is what hes finally says
Thanks!
In my experience carpenter bees don't pay any attention to vertical beams anyway, so this is useless.
They sure were poking holes in mine. Maybe they didn't get your memo.
@@RedToolHouse maybe my erect wood just isn't big enough.
That could be the problem...
That’s not true. I just finished treating a bunch of holes in my vertical beams.
How ingenious! If people don't like it, they can unsubscribe and watch another channel.
Thats a great Idea
Carpenter bees are not pollinators except by accident I use traps and try to caulk up all holes used to use chloridan worked great for forty years but not now
Ken & Boorbee Hah hah.
You got it!
They absolutely HATE Thompson's Water Seal, fyi...
Any updates?
Try dish soap instead of oil.
I just tried this a couple days ago, and they are gone! Now that's weird.
Now THAT i would try ! I don't like the idea of soaking my house in carcinogenic / highly inflammable oils ! And I will check out the Thompson's water seal. All this after we re-stain
our log house .....and pray it outlives us. We built it about 50 years ago.... The bees came
just a couple of years ago. Weird ! BUT I WILL first see exactly what Noah put on the ark !
Bore bees -- girls toys. Lol 😄 (Barbies, for anyone who didn't get it)
We all got it. Relax
Thanks! Guess I'm a slow one.... I didn't get it!! LOL. And I have 3 daughters who played with Barbies!
Sho shugi ban..... Japanese wood preservation , method
Yup... samurai carpenter has a video on it.
Great idea!!! Genius!!!!
Are you not worried about self-ignition? If you leave a bunch of oil-soaked rags in a can, they will self ignite, so I think you can imagine what I'm getting at with you pouring motor oil into dry wood. *Huge* fire hazard.
INF1D3L010 not worried. It is a completely different scenario. Self ignition requires the oxidizing oils to reach combustion temperature. That is why the oily rags have to be in a pile so the heat can’t escape. You could leave an oily rag out by itself and it would never combust. The barn wood will never be able to trap heat to the point of combustion and once the oxidation is complete then there is zero heat production. It is similar to why railroad ties don’t randomly self ignite.
Fair enough. I would have thought the oil that soaks into the core of the wood maybe near the bottom might be able to get to combustion temperatures, but I'm no expert anyways.
The BEST thing to use is CEDAR OIL,instead of motor oil,the carpenter bees hate cedar wood.(nothing bothers cedar)🐝💨___🌲(I'm outta here!!)And it completely natural,so its much safer to use.
Carpenter ants eat cedar
Paul Salb No they don't.I know too many people that own houses made of cedar.
I've got lots of untreated cedar fascia boards on our log home, many are riddled with carpenter bee holes. Yes, 4 gauge, carpenter bees destroy cedar.
You are wrong. They’re not good pollinators at all.
Fancy words.
Carpenter bees do not pollinate. Bumble bees do these are to different bees thou they do look similar
The people who whine don't think about the contaminants produced and energy wasted when treated lumber is produced. They are the ones who think electricity is produced by a team of unicorns on treadmills.
Linseed oil.