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Home made Carpenter/boring/bumble bee trap

17K views 22 replies 15 participants last post by  rugman59 
#1 ·
After doing some web surfing, I ran across the plans to make a bumble bee trap (we call'em bumble bees, but they are carpenter bees). You know the pesky little critters that like to bore holes in your deck, barns, fascia boards etc.

Anyway, my students made them out of whatever scrap they could find can find. So far two have caught 13 in two days in just two traps. I am going to fill my property up with these beauties!



 
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#2 ·
Can you please share the plans for this....I have been fighting these sons of bitches for many years now and this time of year they are fighting each other for the the chance to chew up my wood...I am tired of getting buzzed when I walk into the middle of there Donnybrook.
 
#3 ·
Do you have a link to the plans. Those bees can knock out a 3/8 hole in a board in no time. And even good industrial wasp and hornet spray wont knock them down fast. You can spray there bore hole full and they will come out and fly away.
 
#6 ·
No ****!..I used to have a wooden carport that I kept my Camaro under....One day I came out and found that the car was sprinkled in sawdust....I looked up to see a steady stream of sawdust flowing from a hole..You could here them grinding away at the wood....So I took a caulking gun full of liquid nail and jammed it into the hole and started to crank on the trigger..It took at least half the tube of LN to get backwash and that was only one hole..I brushed off the sawdust from the Camaro....A few days later it was covered in sawdust again...They started another hole but this time they was shitting there wax all over my car....I almost started a thread asking how to stop this.
 
#5 ·
There are not really any "Plans" per se, what I have made is the conglomeration of several designs. From what I gather, so long as the design incorporates a 1/2 diameter hole drilled at an upward angle, and a top that overhangs the holes, you should be good. I use the bottle design from the attached you tube video. There are other styles, but this was easy.

These are made out of 1x6 lumber cut 6 inches long. The tops are all random sizes, just so long as they overhang the hole. you can't use treated lumber either.
You can make these things in 10 minutes flat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD5ExhmaZA8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20DNKOw5Hw4
 
#7 ·
been battling these buggers on my back stairs for years, I have filled their holes with raid and a couple days later new ones push the dead bodies out the holes and start boring again, I have filled their holes with borax as well same deal.
 
#10 ·
I use a .22 bolt gun with shot shells, makes it alot more fun than emptying a plastic jug.
 
#11 ·
Ok I can't resist, is there a round count restriction for the Migratory bumble bees? Do you need a BEE Stamp? Is there a bag limit on how many you can shoot per day? Lastly does a standard hunting license apply?

Robert
 
#15 ·
Since even the carpenter bee is beneficial, has anyone had any luck with sacrificial wood to attract the from doing structural damage? Will these traps capture only carpenter bees or is it nondiscriminatory? Since the females are the borers I presume these will primarily trap the females?

Carry On!
Gary
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#16 ·
those females look like something out of a nightmare
 
#17 ·
The body count rises! I got 19 out of one trap today! 6 out of one, and 8 out of another.

GWR1. I know that the carpenter bee is a pollinator. But we have got so many here that all of the buildings, decks, sheds etc are being drilled to pieces. I keep honey bees on the property too, so pollination is not an issue. To answer you other questions, I have only caught one other insect in the trap, but it too was a bee.

from what I understand the males have a spot on their head, and the females don't. Either way I have a good mixture of both.

Here is todays cleanout. Some were still kicking a bit, so a quick decapitation with the pocketknife ended the their struggle.


 
#18 ·
actually the female carpenter bee looks like A 4 inch yellow jacket thats 3/8 diameter. look it up. We had one in my old forge location, acetalyn blow torches work good.
 
#20 ·
Well, I think I will make one of these and give them a try. With the wife and I allergic to bees, even if these ones can't stink you, we don't want a bunch around. The kids are scared of them too. Before I learned all these great tricks, I found my own. Since no bee killer seems to work... and since they can't sting... I found an old badminton racket. I whack them with that and it cuts them into nice little squares that move around for a little bit.
 
#22 ·
The trap is an awesome idea! cant wait to put one up.

Something a bit more proactive (and also time consuming) is to shoot regular soap and water into the holes. We use dish soap. I like to use my sons "super soaker" water cannon, but a simple squirt bottle on 'stream' works great. the bees will crawl/fall out of the holes within a few seconds, and you can than smash them with your boot.

(caution, do not stand directly under a hole you just sprayed unless you do not mind having a bee in your hair!! if there is more than one in the hole the second one may not fall out for a few minutes)

Its kind fun to do when bored.. lol
 
#23 ·
The trap is an awesome idea! cant wait to put one up.

Something a bit more proactive (and also time consuming) is to shoot regular soap and water into the holes. We use dish soap. I like to use my sons "super soaker" water cannon, but a simple squirt bottle on 'stream' works great. the bees will crawl/fall out of the holes within a few seconds, and you can than smash them with your boot.


(caution, do not stand directly under a hole you just sprayed unless you do not mind having a bee in your hair!! if there is more than one in the hole the second one may not fall out for a few minutes)

Its kind fun to do when bored.. lol
I learned a nasty trick for killing yellow jackets a while back. It woks on nearly ANY bug with an exoskeleton. Honey bees too, so watch the aim.
Dish soap in water sprayed on affected areas while the bees are present. The soap breaks down the natural wax coating on their body and legs. We wiped out nearly a million the year before with that little trick. Seriously, almost every tree here had at least thirty to fifty of the vicious lil' bastards swarming all over them. The trees were literally dripping that year with pitch.
It worked. The ground was covered with bee corpses the next two days.
 
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