Bee Holes

The bee picture came from here. This website has some information about carpenter bees. The pictures below are pictures I took of some of the wholes we filled tonight.

Our back porch has been a buzz with the fat little wood boring nightmares that are called carpenter bees. They terrorize the kids, though I've tried to tell them that they won't hurt them. I must admit they are big intimidating looking fellows, even if they don't sting. Even I flinch when one comes bearing down on me, much less five or six of them. The kids won't even go down the back stairs anymore, which is a problem since that's where they are allowed to play. That's where the swing set is at. That's where the basketball goal is.

Matthew and I are completely fed up with the buzzing bullies, so I googled the solution to the problem today. The pesticide free solution is to caulk or putty the holes.

We didn't get the kids settled until after 11:00pm so we didn't get to start our work on the back porch until shortly before midnight. I can't tell you how afraid I am of spiders. I'd rather run into a snake, a rat, or just about any other creature on this planet. The underside of our back porch had so many spider webs and I saw several spider. I had to chant, "This is for Jamie. This is for Jamie." as a mantra to get the nerve to crawl under the porch. Matthew and I worked for two hours filling up holes. I don't know if we got all of them, but we filled around forty holes. I can't believe how many holes there were. The majority of the holes were under the porch where it's not painted. Apparently carpenter bees don't like painted wood very much.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow. I really wish it wouldn't so we could see if we put a big dent in the bee population. I'm going to be so upset if we didn't.