A skilled carpenter can build a house to last a century. At The Wills Company, our gratitude for the beauty and safety of the homes we live in goes to the carpenters who build them. We have the highest respect and admiration for carpenters…

But for carpenter bees? Not so much!

Carpenter bees are a carpenter’s nemesis, rampaging through fine millwork with nary a care for the skill of the millworking human.

Just look at this piece of cedar we recently removed from a second-story balcony handrail.

So compromised was the wood by invasive bees that it split in half lengthwise to reveal a maze of insect trails. These tunnels are not the destructive work of a sweet, industrious honeybee. This wood-chewing mayhem is the deed of Xylocopa.

You may have met her, buzzing with her lacquer-black friends around, say, your back porch or the steps to your deck. Or worse, on your jungle gym, where her holes are just the perfect circumference for a curious toddler’s index finger. Xylocopa is a sneaky bee, boring perfect perforations as precisely as a drill bit. Once inside the wood, she zigs and zags back and forth, excavating all the strength from the millwork. For a carpenter who expends time and energy building a structure, such boring disregard for craft really…stings.

Not to mention the fact that all that damage can be dangerous. Just think what could have happened if the second-story balcony handrail pictured here had failed… Or if your swingset becomes home to a host of carpenter bees… Or if your bee-ridden stair treads give way under the weight of an unsuspecting climber.

The first step in dealing with carpenter bee damage is to get rid of the perpetrators. You can call a pest control professional, or you can try hanging a quaint carpenter bee trap, designed with a single hole to lure these opportunistic insects into a chamber with no escape. 

Honestly, we can’t guarantee the effectiveness of these homespun devices, because our homemade traps have captured only a few of the flying fiends over the years. We don’t claim to be experts at attracting carpenter bees…

But we do know how to attract talented carpenters! In fact, we have a team of six brilliant problem-solving craftsman, who can tackle carpenter bee damage or any other woodwork repairs.

So if you’re facing insects, rot, or any other damage to woodwork, give us a call at 615-352-1228, and a talented Wills Company carpenter will make a beeline to your house.