Keep Carpenter Bees From Drilling Into Your Deck With A Sweet Smell They Can't Stand

A fellow pollinator that's often mistaken for a bumblebee, carpenter bees can cause more damage than you think, but not to you or your pets. While not all that threatening to humans, they can pose a major threat to your wooden deck. As their name implies, carpenter bees seek solace in wood, drilling holes to create a safe nesting place for their eggs. These tunnels, while small at first, can grow larger each year and ultimately impact the structural integrity of your porch or deck, as well as leave it susceptible to rot, decay, and moisture damage. Thankfully, you can stop a carpenter bee infestation before it starts with some almond oil. The sweet scent of the oil is pleasant and enticing to human noses, but carpenter bees can't stand it.

Applying almond oil to an untreated wood surface helps prevent carpenter bees from nesting inside. Simply take a rag, add almond oil to it, and rub it all over. For a larger wooden deck that occupies a more widespread area, you can mix almond oil and water in a spray bottle and spritz it onto the parts that are prime nesting grounds for carpenter bees. These include worn, weathered, or cracked parts. 

It's best to apply almond oil to your wooden structures right at the start of the spring season, prior to warm weather fully settling in, to make the wood uninviting for newly awakened female bees to lay eggs in. Once you're finished, make sure to reapply almond oil to your deck regularly, especially after rainfall, since the oil can wash off easily.

An environmentally-friendly way to repel carpenter bees from your home and deck, opting to use almond oil instead of pesticides is better for your yard and garden overall, since it doesn't disrupt your garden's ecosystem, allowing carpenter bees and other pollinators to still enter and help your garden flourish. Since it's a natural oil, you don't have to worry about breathing in toxic or hazardous fumes when applying it to your wood surfaces. In addition to preventing carpenter bees from drilling into your wooden deck, almond oil acts as a natural conditioner for untreated wood, enhancing the natural color of the raw material while making it shiny. Almond oil also keeps wood from drying out and cracking by keeping it adequately moisturized.  

Prevention is key when it comes to dealing with carpenter bees. It's important to note, then, that using almond oil only works for deterring carpenter bees that have not yet started boring into your wooden deck. If you find carpenter bee holes in your deck or other signs of a carpenter bee infestation, almond oil will, unfortunately, not be effective at making your deck bee-free, because it only affects the surface of the wood. For an ongoing carpenter bee infestation, professionals might need to be called in.