carpenter bee trap

[Eric Krewson]

Carpenter bees have been eating up my deck every summer. I have plugged holes, sprayed poison and swatted them with a tennis racket but they keep on coming. I saw an ad for bee traps, altered the design a little to accommodate a Gatorade bottle and made this one today.

The idea is, the bee checks out the predrilled hole(drilled at a 45degree angle) once inside the trap it can only see light on the bottom through the Gatorade bottle and flies to the light to leave. Once in the bottle they fly in circles until they die.

[jonathan creason]

That's a pretty cool idea, I'll have to pass it on to my dad since he battles them every year.  A few years ago he got to where he could shoot them with a big rubber band, but now he just swats them with a racket.

[Pat B]

Thats a cool idea. My luck a pair of Carolina wrens would move in! 

[Bevan R.]

Think it would work for some other flying nasties? We get tons of wasps here.

Bevan R

[osage outlaw]

What size hole?

Just the hole in the front, or one on each side?  It looks like a second hole on the left side in your picture.

The hole is drilled upward at a 45 degree angle?


Thanks for the idea

[ricktrojanowski]

Very Cool, thaks for sharing that.  We battle those every year.

[Eric Krewson]

1/2" hole on each side drilled up at a 45, I used a forstner bit. I got the ones on the sides a little low because I started my holes on the wrong side of the boards before I tacked everything together. Started them in the middle but they came out low. I used some old pressure treated decking to make the trap.

[Eric Krewson]

I drilled the hole for the 16 oz Gatorade bottle cap with a 1 1/2" hole saw, just right for a press fit of the cap. After I had the cap in I used a 1 1/4 " hole saw to drill the center of the cap out The bottle screws into the pressed fit cap threads.

The one in the picture is a prototype. In my next one I will attach the top with drywall screws so I can take it off in case I need to clean any wasp nests out of the trap after summer is over.

[johnston]

Got the bee problem bad, thanks for the post.

Did you slope the top to keep rain out? I will build one ( or two) for my outside shop and probably make the top flat and hinged for clean out. Pat is right about the wrens... any ideas on that?

Lane