Pressure treated wood - attracts bees?

mcvane

We had pressure treated wood installed with the deck we got constructed last year.

I thought it was coinicdence, but there are more bees hovering around deck crevices/cracks.

I've even stained the deck. But now, it still appears bees like to congregate on the deck.

Does anyone know if there is a syruppy substance in pressure-treated wood that attracts bees? They appear to sit down by the cracks where screws were pushed into the lumber.

Any ideas/experiences?

Thanks

Mike Swearingen

Sounds like female carpenter bees. They like to bore into wood and lay eggs, and even to try P-T wood.
P-T wood treatment is poisonous to insects, rot, etc., so don't worry about them damaging the deck.
Mike

SecretSquirrel

The PT wood is probably southern yellow pine and it is quite "sappy".
I have experienced certain types of bees going crazy over pine shavings when I'm outside sawing up some lumber.

If the bees become too big of a nuisance then there's a product called Bee Gone. You'll have to ask the distributor if applying it to a deck is an appropriate application of the product.

jobeamca

One thing I've noticed about the carpenter bees, since they've changed the pressure-treated wood and taken out the arsenic (it was CCA, now its ACQ) they'll attack it much more readily. I've got a fence and a pergola I built out of the old, bad-but-good stuff with the arsenic (cough cough) and they won't touch it. And I've also built an arbor and a tiki bar out of the new stuff without the arcenic and they're tearing it up.

Now I'm a liive and let live type of guy, so at first I left them alone, because its only a small hole that they make and it only seems about a couple of inchdes deep. And they don;t really eat the wood they only use it to make a nest. But then I startied researching them and found out that they bore the entry hole peppenicular to the grain, and then go parallel with the grain with a hole that can be 2 or 3 feet long, with side tunnels branching off for the eggs! And on top of that, they have a homing instinct. So the baby bees that leave the nest in your wood will return to make even more nests and have even more babies. So every year you'll have more and more! So we're talking major strucutral damage here.

So now I try to take them out. I read that WD-40 will kill them, and I've tried it and it really works! WHen you see a bee go in the hole just stick the red tube in as far as you can and give a squirt. In a minute or two the bee will come staggering out, drop to the ground, and die. Also its kind of fun to pluck them out of the air while hovering with a BB gun.

I was going to paint or stain my new stuff for next year because I read they didn't like that. But yours is already stained and you're still having the problem? I might have to try something like that beeb-b-gone stuff.

mcvane

Thanks for your reply...WD40 is a good thought...I bought a super large can a few years ago and haven't used it much - now I can actually put it to use!

Well, it may be the fact that I didn't splash the deck with the coating. I covered it well, but the crevices that you speak of were left alone. And the mini-tunnels you speak of I thought were a deficiency in the wood (they may be). But I found that certain areas, the wood had thin, long cylindrical shapes that were coming off and cracking and I actually pulled them off because you could easily get your hand hurt by the parts that were expanding it seemed (I have a curious 18 month-old girl)

It's funny how the people that build your deck don't seem to care to tell you about these interesting problems. They just say stain it. You only find out in this amazing forum!

I'm going to scan the deck for any holes or gaps and exterminate the bees. Maybe I can use WD40 around the house to get rid of centipedes and spiders as well? That's a thought!!