Carpenter Bee Load

[gandydancer]

I believe the males can't sting, but the females can.

who has time to check?? lol

[Grendel99]

I noticed these carpenter bees really digging into my fence and picnic table. I just looked on wikipedia and the males do NOT have stingers but the females do. It did say the females are generally pretty docile though. Also said they are great pollinators so I will be leaving them alone unless they get into the house.

[44man]

Neighbor has a log house and it is covered in window screen to keep squirrels out. The place was sprayed with some preservative long ago and the tree rats ate the wood. Doesn't keep the bees out and at the corners, the screen sags from tons of sawdust.
Things are eating holes all through my wood bin and barn insides. Tried no 9 shot once but the patterns suck. Have to try the grits, etc.

[Texantothecore]

This thread ought to be stickied as a public service.

I will be using this when I teach some friends to reload. Part of the chapter entitled "the fully employed gun", different bullets and different loads for specific uses, etc.

[Eddie2002]

I've a old Crossman BB gun which knocks them out of the air out to 5-6 feet. I pump it up and "muzzle Load" it with saw dust from my table saw and a little WD 40 to hold the charge together, tamp it down with a brass rod. It also works great on the Wolf and Coconut spiders that sometime invade my shop.
Maybe a pinch of walnut media over just a little greendot would work for my little .380 LCP. hee hee

[Pb Burner]

Attachment 103311Ruger .45 2.5 gr clays under a .030 card wad, 2cc grits under another .030 card wad. Body count at 96 for today.

Any one have any advice or detailed info on assembling loads like these? Will these work with no powder? Would enlarging the primer flash hole be beneficial, powder or not? If so, how much?
I'm an experienced reloader, just never tried or made any of these loads. I'm going to try some of these very soon. Probably for 357mag. Have a 3" and 4" revolvers.
I've got the carpenter bees... And they are a problem. Sounds like some good practice and fun too.
Advise? Suggestions?

[gwpercle]

Charley must be right about the painted surface deterring carpenter bees. There are a lot around my house right now but since the eaves and fascia boards are painted, they don't seem to be boreing holes there. I started looking around and found a lot of round holes in the trunks of two or three dead trees. These are out back near a garden, citris trees and a live tree, with a hollow in it , with honey bees living in it. These tree trunks aren't painted so thats where they are boreing....that's okay with me. Got mason bees too they live in the cane and bamboo and unused carpenter bee holes. Amazing what lives back there. And I thought there were only honey bees and bumble bees. Haven't stumbled on any bumble bee nests yet!
Gary

[Mal Content]

Pb Sent you a pm.
Mal

[hornady308]

Red Ryder bb gun! As a kid I used to spend hours shooting carpenter bees out of mid air. Just wait until they hover, then drop 'em. The Red Rider is quick on follow up shots and very quiet. Now that I'm an "adult" I pay my kids a $2 bounty for each body they show me. This is good parenting since it teaches the kids to work and earn their own way in the world.

[Pb Burner]

I was thinking the "grits" loads might be safer, as in short range, no collateral damage. BB's can go for some distance. I'm in a rural area, don't want to be shooting bb's while aiming in the air.

[Charley]

Charley must be right about the painted surface deterring carpenter bees. There are a lot around my house right now but since the eaves and fascia boards are painted, they don't seem to be boreing holes there. I started looking around and found a lot of round holes in the trunks of two or three dead trees. These are out back near a garden, citris trees and a live tree, with a hollow in it , with honey bees living in it. These tree trunks aren't painted so thats where they are boreing....that's okay with me. Got mason bees too they live in the cane and bamboo and unused carpenter bee holes. Amazing what lives back there. And I thought there were only honey bees and bumble bees. Haven't stumbled on any bumble bee nests yet!
Gary

Wait until you see leaf cutter bees. What they can do to roses is unreal, looks like someone took a giant paper punch and punched out a bunch of perfectly circular holes in the leaves about 1/2 inch in diameter. Lots more hymenoptera than most people know of...

[gtgeorge]

You want to protect your property from carpenter bees? There is the really neat invention, called PAINT. Paint the wooden surfaces the bees typically bore holes in, and it will repel them. The females check the taste/texture of the surface they are interested in, a layer of finish will stop the boring.

Really, I guess the paint on my shop has them illiterate bees boring holes that didn't read they was supposed to go find unpainted wood.

[Pb Burner]

Yeah gtgeorge, paint doesn't stop them at my place either.

[Any Cal.]

Some of these loads look neat, but a bit of searching found http://bugblaster.net which looked pretty good also...

[dondiego]

Wait until you see leaf cutter bees. What they can do to roses is unreal, looks like someone took a giant paper punch and punched out a bunch of perfectly circular holes in the leaves about 1/2 inch in diameter. Lots more hymenoptera than most people know of...

There are a lot of hymenoptera out there! There are some diptera that mimic certain hymenoptera and I have amazed my friends when I catch one in my hands and don't get stung. I did make an identity mistake one time though and got stung........just once!

Don


Straight "A"'s in both field entomology courses.

[Charley]

I've seen those "mistakes" as well. Won't admit to making one like that....

[jaystuw]

I solved a yellow jacket wasp problem once, at it's source. The hive was inside a 6 inch wide hole in the trunk of an oak tree, about 4ft off the ground.

I ran up to that tree, stuffed the muzzle of a tokarev pistol as far into the entrance as I could get it. and emptied a magazine of 7.62x25 PPsh submachine gun ammo into it.

The bullets probably didn't do much but the flash and muzzle blast of that PPsh ammo out of a pistol and inside that small space seemed to get their attention.

No flyers, but the yellow jackets that crawled out were slow, groggy and disoriented to say the least.

The following morning I found the nest to be abandoned, must of been a little to much excitement for them! Jay

[cr2]

This past week I experimented with barley and rice. The barley seems too light weight, and the rice doesn't give enough 'pellets.'. Haven't tried grits yet. So far my favorite non-lead shot is this pasta called Acini de Pepe that Screwbolts suggested. I had never heard of it. One pound bag was $2.50, and I figure it will make 500 rounds...so 1/2 cent per round. The pellets seem to be about the same size as #9 shot. I filled up a charged 357 mag case, then counted the pellets. It holds about 100 which gives pretty good coverage. One thing I really miss about using the lead shot is that it gives a little bit of recoil which feels good. You don't feel this other stuff at all. I've reduced the powder to 2.6 gr. of SR 7625, which is the smallest hole on the lee auto disk powder measure. I tried less powder, but it went from a mouse fart to a flea fart...not much fun. And also, when I miss one of these suckers, I want him to at least know he's been shot at.

[FLHTC]

I'm pretty serious about killing carpenter bees around my shop. They bore holes in the fascia boards, and generally undermine the strength of any outside wood. The fly swatter has always been my favorite tool because it's light weight and quick. It swats them out of the air before they know what hit them. Most days I walk out on the deck and wait for them to come check me out. At first they are pretty dumb and hover right in front of me. Problem is, after 8-10 kills they get smarter and stay a few feet out of reach. A few years ago I made a spring loaded wooden gun that shot a light weight disk with about 50 nails protruding from it. It wasn't completely successful, but I did manage to impale a few bees with it.

My latest weapon of choice is low tech shotshells in my 357 magnum revolver. I use my usual 38 special powder load, pack it down with a wad over it, then add 75 gr. of #9 bird shot covered by another wad. A rolled up piece of paper surrounds the shot in the case. After crimping the case, I drip 5 drops of wax from a burning candle on top to seal it all up. The wax runs under the crimp so the ball of wax is captured making a pretty neat package. The picture below shows the pattern I'm getting at 8 ft. I still use the fly swatter when I can...those are freebies. But when they are out of range, it's well worth the nickel it costs to shoot them down.

Yeah, I know...there's something that's just wrong about blasting bees out of the sky with a 357 magnum revolver....but it sure is fun!

Coarse sugar works great in 38 special cases and they're just as dead

[cr2]

how far away can you be with the sugar and still kill them?