To Bee or Not to Bee – Getting Creative with Exterminating Carpenter Bumble Bees

by MomKat Kathleen Albin

While it’s a disturbing fact the honeybee population has been experiencing colony collapse disorder since 2006, a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive abruptly disappear, there is one segment of the bee population of which I’m sure the opposite is true.  That would be the Carpenter bee.

These are the bees that you often see eyeballing your deck, decorating your barn beams, or disappearing under your house gutter to who knows where in bee land.  They’re big round chubby bees and I know there’s no problem with their population, because they are EVERYWHERE!  If they would just stick to pollinating azaleas we’d all get along just fine.  It’s when they go to making their homes in mine, drilling their perfectly round little holes in my house that I want them dead.

So one day, as I sat out on my patio, listening once again to the ’crunch, crunch, crunch’ as they methodically burrowed their way through my eaves, I decided I could take no more.  I devised a plan to exterminate them, and I don’t mean by hired means.  Exploring the internet, I found that WD-40 would do the trick, so I went to the hardware store and got 3 cans with the long needle neck spray applicator.  Then I visited the toy department of Wal-mart and bought a Super Soaker squirt gun that can shoot distances up to 25 feet.  I took my weapons of choice home, and filled the Super Soaker reservoir with pre-mixed fly spray I use to keep the flies from bothering my horse.  Then I went to work.  I had a good idea of where all the bees had their holes.  So, waiting til dusk when they‘re getting ready to retire,  I climbed up my trusty ladder, wrangled the long needle neck WD-40 applicator into each hole and sprayed for all it was worth.  Results soon followed with lubricated bees exiting the holes. I imagined them coughing and choking as if they’d been plummeted with tear gas, and continued spraying so as to kill any larvae.  After that, I set back to listen and watch.  This is where the Super Soaker I had now labeled my Bee

Bazooka would come in.  Intermittently a bee would show up which had not been present while the massacre had taken place, where upon I’d fire my weapon from the ground, easily hitting my target head on.

I’m happy to say within a day’s time, I’d pretty much addressed the problem that had plagued me for so long.  Do remember if you try any of these tactics for yourself, be sure to store your personal Bee Bazooka away from kids, as you really don’t want them dousing each other with bug spray.
Nowadays when I sit on my patio, the birds are chirping, the water is trickling from my waterfall, and the wind might be rustling through the leaves, but without a doubt the best sound is the one I can’t hear.  You know, the silence of the bees.