Can Carpenter Bees Damage My Home?
Carpenter Bees are about to hatch. It’s been a tough winter but soon spring will be here and with it the arrival of carpenter bees. They are generally considered to be beneficial as pollinators of various plants but they can cause damage to your home’s under hangs, soffits, fascia and siding.
Here are a few things to know about those big-dive bombing bees that circle around your house or your head on sunny days in May and June. Carpenter bees have a mission: to meet other bees, mate, dig into the side of your house and lay eggs. When they follow you around and dive bomb into your face it is the male bees doing this little dance to see if you are a mate. Don’t worry they do not sting. However, despite them being docile, carpenter bees will drill a perfectly round hole approximately 9 inches deep into your home’s under hang, soffit or fascia and deposit their eggs. The following year the eggs hatch and the bees eat through the siding. Their holes do destroy the home and its structure. Sometimes woodpeckers discover them and create a much bigger hole. The trick to controlling carpenter bees and their natural predator woodpeckers is to keep their local population down.
Throughout the year, especially when we paint customers’ exterior homes, Nolan Painting often encounters carpenter bees’ holes. When we notice carpenter bees and their holes, we apply boric acid powder in the holes. We then fill the holes with caulk and paint over them. This process will take care of the issue and it is rather easy. No exterminator necessary, just call Nolan.