My house is NOT food!
The past few days have been rather warm so I decided to put up my screens.
I don't normally use my front porch in cold weather so I'd not noticed that there's been carpenter bee activity on one of my porch posts .
As you can see, it's quite a hole they created.
I noticed this hole as I was taking the glass door off of my porch entryway. Fortunately I had a can of hornet spray so I promptly dosed down this hole. And then, while dying bees were scrambling out, I replaced the glass door with my screen door.
Here you see one of the bees on the porch right after it tumbled out of the hole in my porch post. It's still looking pretty healthy at this point.
As bees go, this is a pretty sturdy looking species. Oddly enough that didn't help it against the chemicals in the hornet spray.
And no, I don't feel sorry for the nasty bug. Like the title up there says: My House is NOT Food!
Damn bugs!
Here you can see that the carpenter bee is starting to lose its coordination and acting in a "drunken" manner.
You might say that its days are numbered. Hell, its minutes are numbered at this point. Damn bug.
I wonder of PETA cares about bugs?
I'm letting the hole dry overnight and this weekend I'll seal it up with silicon caulk and then some wood putty on the outer area so that I can paint the post.
Here you can see the end result for bugs that try to eat my house. Be warned, damn bugs!
There didn't seem to be all that many bees in the post. I had 6 tumble out and die. Maybe more are dead inside the post--I don't know. There was one left on the outside of the post.
I was watching it for a while, observing its behavior. I got the picture below of it hovering near the post.
5 times the bee approached the post but each time it tried to enter the hole it didn't like the smell and flew away.
After the 5th time it started circling the area, then it examined the posts on either side of the post with its nest. I was quite intrigued with the problem solving behavior. Bees are quite controlled by their genetic programming and this illustrated just how deep that programming is.
After the initial reconitor, the bee tried the hole again but soon withdrew and then circled a wider area. After that the bee started examining the narrower wood rails and small posts. After that I stopped watching the bee. I suspect it kept flying until it died of exhaustion.
I don't normally use my front porch in cold weather so I'd not noticed that there's been carpenter bee activity on one of my porch posts .As you can see, it's quite a hole they created.
I noticed this hole as I was taking the glass door off of my porch entryway. Fortunately I had a can of hornet spray so I promptly dosed down this hole. And then, while dying bees were scrambling out, I replaced the glass door with my screen door.
Here you see one of the bees on the porch right after it tumbled out of the hole in my porch post. It's still looking pretty healthy at this point.As bees go, this is a pretty sturdy looking species. Oddly enough that didn't help it against the chemicals in the hornet spray.
And no, I don't feel sorry for the nasty bug. Like the title up there says: My House is NOT Food!
Damn bugs!
Here you can see that the carpenter bee is starting to lose its coordination and acting in a "drunken" manner.You might say that its days are numbered. Hell, its minutes are numbered at this point. Damn bug.
I wonder of PETA cares about bugs?
I'm letting the hole dry overnight and this weekend I'll seal it up with silicon caulk and then some wood putty on the outer area so that I can paint the post.
Here you can see the end result for bugs that try to eat my house. Be warned, damn bugs!There didn't seem to be all that many bees in the post. I had 6 tumble out and die. Maybe more are dead inside the post--I don't know. There was one left on the outside of the post.
I was watching it for a while, observing its behavior. I got the picture below of it hovering near the post.
5 times the bee approached the post but each time it tried to enter the hole it didn't like the smell and flew away.
After the 5th time it started circling the area, then it examined the posts on either side of the post with its nest. I was quite intrigued with the problem solving behavior. Bees are quite controlled by their genetic programming and this illustrated just how deep that programming is.
After the initial reconitor, the bee tried the hole again but soon withdrew and then circled a wider area. After that the bee started examining the narrower wood rails and small posts. After that I stopped watching the bee. I suspect it kept flying until it died of exhaustion.
Comments
We had honey bees in the house twice, and they are hard to get rid of too.
Michele sent me.
No wonder the witch in Hansel and Gretel was so pissed off when the little buggers started chewing on her walls!
:o)
Hello from Michele.
Carpenter bees are about the only kind that don't terrify me - I guess because they go after wood and not flesh. I found two wasps inside my house though, today, and that was really annoying.
My husband claims he's allergic to bees, but I think he's just phobic. Me? I haven't been stung since I was a baby.
I hope no one ever gasses you, my dear.....OY!
I don't mean to offend you---I just have a very visceral feeling about those bees in thpse pictures. RIP, Bee's.
Still, it's damn bugs here. And they're trying to eat my house! Damn bugs.
Seriously, there are structural integrity issues. Those posts are holding up the front of my house. I really don't want them to get hollowed out.
Melissa, I believe your husband. As for the bees, they're huge. I don't mind bees as a rule and these fellows had me edgy.
Good luck getting rid of them!
It isn't just the holes, but that nasty yellow waste material left all over the place... at our house it was all over the outside of the windows.
There is something a little funny about seeing a woodpecker try and hack through a rock hard silicone plug.
Poor old bees - strangely I feel sorry for the one that came home to find it's friends gassed and it's home uninhabitable! I suspect that is just me transferring human feelings to the bee though! I had a leaf cutter bee making a nest in one of my potted plants last year. I filled up the hole three times. The third time the bee caught me in the act and chased me back into my house! I won in the end by putting a mulch of gravel on top of the pot. The bee still spent ages trying to move it though. I guess once you've set your heart on a home it's hard to give it up!
B-K, I did feel sorry for the bee searching for home. I kept getting mental images of the Flying Dutchman and their doomed search.
Here from Michele's
Michele sent me.
Michele sent me today!
~S
Kellie sent me over (saw you on Shephard's blog as well).
Here from Michele's :)
The only exceptions are the large-ish furry beings we occasionally adopt into our family. Like the dog we brought home this week. He hasn't been gainfully employed as far as I know, but he's kinda cute to have around, and he doesn't bore ginormous holes into the house.
Bees? Not so much. Bravo for not only nuking them - as they deserve to be - but capturing it in such a fascinating way. I can always count on you to educate while you entertain.
Michele sent me ; have a great weekend !
Michele sent me to say thank you for your visit and vote.xoxox
I'd have done the same. Bees shouldn't be that close to humans; we don't coexist well.
Thanks for visiting!
I am so afraid of bees that I have been known to walk away from my children to get away from them.
I know bad mother!!
So I say.. "Good Job!"
Michele sent me!