This makes it harder for the bees to find it and even when they are flying around it freshly treated lumber isn t nearly as appealing as unpainted raw wood.
Carpenter bees and pressure treated wood. Female carpenter bees may excavate new tunnels for egg laying or. When possible avoid the use of chemical pesticides. If your exposed wood has an exterior wood stain but is not sealed with polyurethane or some other wood sealant bees may still be a problem. Most stains only penetrate a few microns into the surface of wood and bees will quickly chew through to the real wood and begin nesting.
Even pressure treated wood is not immune from carpenter bee attack. Carpenter bee control dispelling the myth do carpenter bees like pressure treated wood how to make a carpenter bee trap 12 carpenter bee facts you probably didn t learn in do carpenter bees sting. The chemicals in cca prevented rot and insect damage. If you want to use stained lumber be sure to seal it appropriately to protect the wood from pests and weathering.
As the bee drills into the wood coarse sawdust may be seen coming out of the hole and piling up beneath. Since it only takes a couple of hours for a carpenter bee to drill a hole a few inches deep lots of holes can appear over a fairly short period of time. This is probably due to the fact that pressure treated lumber tends to be more dense. That being said in my experience it would seem that in general most carpenter bees prefer untreated wood over pressure treated lumber.
To avoid bee damage to newly built wooden decks and porches people relied on pressure treated lumber containing cca chromated copper arsenate. And burrowing sounds may be heard from within the wood. Carpenter bees typically avoided stained or painted wood and still do though they may still attack it.


