Carpenter Bee Trap Plans

by Jim MacLachlan

An easy woodworking project to make carpenter bee traps out of 2x4 or tree branch scraps & a jar using minimal tools.

Carpenter bees look similar to big bumblebees & they're pretty innocuous for the most part. Like most bees, they're an important part of the ecosystem, so I don't go out of my way to kill them unless they're causing a problem, which they certainly do when they build their nests in my buildings. I don't like using pesticides & many aren't particularly effective since the bees don't eat the wood they're boring into. They just crunch it into sawdust & shove it out the hole which is why they'll bore into treated wood. Effective pesticides are pretty nasty & only work for a short time, so I think the best way to stop them is to plug their holes & trap them. These are the plans for a couple of different traps; one using 2x4 scraps, the other a bit of tree branch.

The basic idea is simple. The bees find a nice chunk of wood with premade holes that lead to a glass jar. They land on the outside of it, climb up into a tunnel that leads up at about a 45° angle to another that goes straight down through a jar lid into daylight. Unfortunately for them, they're stuck in the jar until I get around to emptying it & killing them. I've never seen one find its way back out.

47 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 19, 2017

About the author

I grew up on the family farm with horses, sheep, cattle, fowl, dogs, cats, & a lot of other critters in north central Maryland. While the farm paid for itself, the family remodeling business was the steady income. I worked at that for about 15 years until an injury forced me to change my computer hobby into my career. It was tough at the time, but a great career move from an economic standpoint.

Now I'm the entire IT department for a small manufacturing company in Louisville, KY. My wife of 35+ years & I have a small hobby farm with horses, goats, dogs, & a cat. Taking care of the farm, woodworking, & various fiber arts take up my free time.

Reviews

[Jim]

This is free on Smashwords.com here:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

It costs $0.99 on Amazon because they won't let me make it free. Smashwords allows you to download it in multiple formats. The PDF is a good choice so you can print it out for the shop. If you buy it on Amazon & want the PDF version, just let me know & I'll email it to you.