On 6/24/2016 3:33 PM, songbird wrote:
George Shirley wrote:
...
We have carpenter and mason bees all over the place, have never been
stung by one. After their young hatch and move on I use the pressure
washer to knock down the old mud houses. Carpenter bees don't bother us
as our eaves, etc. are concrete board and they can't drill it.

we've had some carpenter bees once in a while.
i just caulked the holes. the new stain on the
house seems to have kept them away from doing
more damage. all the siding and trim is western
red cedar with several coats of stain on it.
so i don't consider it enough of a problem to do
anything about.

them being inside the shed is the problem.
We haven't had that many carpenter or mason bees since we moved here. In
Louisiana I made several carpenter bee nests, a short piece of four by
four pine, drill holes into it of a certain size, which I don't
remember, the carpenter bees will do the rest. We made mud pans for the
mason bees and I made a hollow four by four with four one by fours about
a foot long for the mason bees. Both of those are good pollinators.


Our old house had to have the eaves completely rebuilt due to carpenter
bees and the squirrels eating into the attic to nest. Replaced those
eaves with concrete board and solved the problem.

they have snails in FL that eat concrete now.
between those, fire ants, crazy ants and roaches
i can't say the south appeals to me at all. i
like ants and all that, but i don't want to have
that level of warfare with them... the phorid
flies can help slow them down a bit.
I lived on the East Coast for nearly four years while in the Navy. I
prefer the south, mostly nice people, good food, decent weather except
in the summer. Heck, I never saw snow until I was 18, don't miss it either.


Still picking them peas twice a day. Tomatoes have about played out but
sweet peppers are going crazy still. We're getting temperatures in the
mid to high nineties almost every day now.

all the garden plants here are doing well with the
sunshine, but the lack of rain is tough to keep up
with the watering for this many gardens. almost the
complete opposite of last year (where we had regular
rains i don't think i had to water much after getting
things sprouted/going).


songbird

I just went to get the mail, black clouds to the south, east, and part
of the north. Hopefully we will get some more rain this evening. This
time of year rain means a somewhat cool spell for a while. I need to
pick peas again but it's to darn hot out there, may wait and pick by
headlight.