This Is Not a Paper Bag

There is an idea floating around the internet for a deterrent for carpenter bees and wasps. Take a small brown paper bag, fill it with plastic bags or newspaper, and hang it in the area where carpenter bees or wasps are a problem. We have a terrible carpenter bee problem and have tried various recommended deterrents, so far without success. Since some people say the paper bag works for them, I decided to give it a try.

After Dan hung it up the carpenter bees showed up as usual and it did indeed stop them in their tracks. A number of them spent the rest of the day hovering a safe distance from the bag, watching it. They would zoom away and back again, always to halt short of that bag and stare at it.

We were cautiously optimistic that perhaps we had found a solution to the problem. The only reservation in declaring it a success was in not knowing how smart carpenter bees actually are.

By about the third day they figured out that no hornets were forthcoming, so they proceeded to ignore it and resume their annoying burrowing in our porch roof rafters. Wasps, ditto. We removed two wasp nests in the same time period, but maybe the wasps weren’t smart enough to notice.

If paper bag method has worked for you, then I’m not going to brag that our carpenter bees are smarter than yours, I’m just going to wish it worked for us too.

I also read that they don’t like citrus and found some directions for a DIY citrus spray. Next time I go shopping I’ll get some oranges or grapefruit and make some. I’ll let you know how it works.