Carpenter Bees

This is a carpenter be on a post in the garden.

Well Carpenter Bee season is about over and we are hoping we made a dent in the local population.  They came out with a vengeance and were doing their best to chew through all the wood in our two barns.  Carpenter bees look a lot like bumble bees but you are less likely to get stung by one.  The females are the only ones to have a stinger and the males are just aggressive but can't do anything about it.  Since we don't like using poison if we can help it, we came up with a unique way to try and control the bees this year.   We killed over 500 bees this way.....how do we know?  Well we counted of course.  We counted because it was a game to see who could kill the most bees. 

Here is one of the bee warriors with his trusty weapon of destruction.  Yes, that is a badminton racket in his hand.  Do you like the boots?  He was in a hurry to get out there and start whopping.  We would call breaks from school for 10 or 15 minute time frames and all go out to see who could get the most bees.  Boy did we get some exercise.  This works so well because the bees like to hover when they are mating and when they are getting ready to go into an existing hole or drill a new hole in the wood.  The activity has finally died down.  We will see if this has made much difference next spring.  Until then we will miss watching people do "lawn dancing" as they strive for the next kill.