BEES
When you have yellow jackets, wasps or hornets under your siding use “Quick
Start” to kill them. This is the stuff they use to start cars in the winter,
it’s ether. When it’s dark, go out to the entrance hole and spray the entire can
into the hole, then caulk the hole shut. The insects will be dead within
seconds. The caulk keeps others from using the same nest to re-establish the
colony. Ether is very volatile, so don’t it use around open flames, or smoke while
you are using it!!!
When the bee problem is in the ground, fill a 16 oz soda bottle with kerosene and
when gets dark shove the neck of the bottle down the hole and make sure it will stay
there, prop it up with a board if necessary. Leave it for several days and all of the bees will be dead and you can
remove the bottle. If you remove the bottle too soon bees that were
not there will move in and re-establish the colony. When you're sure
everything is dead and none are coming back, fill in the hole and tamp it solid,
so others can't use it.
To keep wasps and other type bees from building hives along the soffit at the
wall outside, staple a bag of 4 or 5 mothball ever 4 feet along the soffit
against the wall. To make the bags, use 6" squares of nylon stockings. Lay the
balls on the nylon fold and staple in place. This also works under decks etc.
Be sure to check every so often because the mothballs dissipate and you need to
re-fill the bag.
Carpenter bees can be a problem when they decide to drill holes into the wood
trim on your house. If the wood has been painted you are in trouble! About the
only thing you can do with painted wood is to cover it with either “Ben Gay” or
“Vicks Vapor Rub” . The bees don’t like the fumes from these products or the
sticky stuff on their legs, so stay away from anything coated with this, until
the fumes subside and the grease hardens. On the other hand, if the wood is
stained or raw unfinished wood, you can do something. Paint the wood with
kerosene or fuel oil wait several days and put on a second coat. You can mix
stain with this if you want to stain the wood at the same time. The kerosene or
fuel oil soaks into the wood surface and the bees will not chew this, it burns
their mouth parts.
Honey bees sometimes became a problem by moving into the wall on the house. When this happens you will need to talk to a bee keeper or the state bee agent. You can usually find out how to contact the bee agent by calling the Extension Office in your locale.
If you're planning a picnic and want to keep the yellow jackets at bay, buy or make several yellow jacket traps and set them out around 8:00am the day of the picnic. The traps should be set about 60 to 70 feet away from where you plan to be eating. By the time you are ready to have the meal, the traps will be covered with bees and none will come to your party. To build the trap cut a round hole in the sides of the 2 liter bottle you are using, about half way up from the bottom. Get a piece of 3/4 inch PVC pipe 8 or 9 inches long with the ends cut on a 50 degree angle so the bees can land the flat ramp. Next cut a 1 inch diameter hole in the bottom of the pipe, at the center ( ramps face up this hole faces down). Next insert the pipe through the holes so there is a ramp on either side of the bottle facing up. Center the pipe in the bottle. If the holes you cut for the pipe are not tight, use hot glue to seal the openings. Now to use this trap, put approximately 1/2 inch of apple juice in the bottom by pouring some down each ramp and they are ready to use. By the way, make sure to leave the lid on the bottle!