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View Full Version : How to drill a perfect 3/8" hole



John Coloccia
05-28-2010, 5:04 PM
Buy yourself a batch of carpenter bees!

I found out last year that I'm allergic to bees, so now I'm acutely aware of bee/wasp/hornet nests and call someone out to eradicate them. In addition to several nests, including a white faced hornet nest (those suckers are NASTY and aggresive), I found some curious little holes in my shed that a bee was flying in and out of.

"That a carpenter bee". A what??

He said, "Yep...look at that sawdust coming out of the hole. He's working". Sure enough, saw dust was floating out of the hole. The hole itself was about 3/8" in diameter, and perfectly round, so much so that I had assumed the holes were drilled and that the bee just found a convenient way into the shed.

So for all you neanders looking for a way to make those dog holes in your bench, grab some carpenter bees, put them in a cup and put the cup upside down on your bench. You'll have a perfect hole the next morning.

Jay Jolliffe
05-29-2010, 6:01 AM
If you don't stop them they will be back year after year. I care took a house & they had hundreds of holes all around the trim. The people who owned the house would just plug the hole & next year the ones born showed up to start their holes for nests.

John Coloccia
05-29-2010, 8:25 AM
If you don't stop them they will be back year after year. I care took a house & they had hundreds of holes all around the trim. The people who owned the house would just plug the hole & next year the ones born showed up to start their holes for nests.

Oh, they're stopped. Stopped as a door nail. :)

Mike Cruz
05-29-2010, 10:56 PM
John, they are a very serious problem. I'm not a killer of bees (or anything else for that matter) for the sake of killing, but those boogers will make swiss cheese of your soffits, facia, and even structural parts of your house pretty quickly. I have a "bug company" that "protects" my house. They have no solution. I do...a tennis racket! Seriously. I used to use my hat, but they always seemed juuuuuust out of reach. The racket does the job.

And as Jay said, they will return year after year to the place where they were born. I now have about about 75+% LESS than I did 5 years ago. I'm not advocating species anialation, but these things are almost as destructive as termites.

On the plus side, they don't have stingers... If you are allergic to bees and are unsure if they are carpenter bees or bumble bees, look for a white dot on the forhead of the bee...that is a carpenter bee.

And I, too, always wondered if I could harness one and "put him to work" for me...:D Of course, I would make him a little bee habitrail complete with flowers for pollenating and everything. But, I think a drill bit would be cheaper in the long run.

Phil Thien
05-30-2010, 9:21 AM
If only we could harness their energy, we'd have an alternative to expensive 3D CNC.

Jay Jolliffe
05-30-2010, 9:31 AM
You can get rid of them. I found on-line a company that sells a sort of poison I guess that you put in this bulb sprayer. It's sort of a round bulb with a 3/16" tube that you put some of the poison in and stick in the hole a ways and squesse the bulb. Then you put is a 1/2" tapered cork in the hole. What it's suppose to do is when the bee's walk over the poison it dehydrates them. So no more bees & the little ones won't be coming back next year. I took a piece of trim off my house that they got in, opened it up to find they bore a corridor with little rooms of that. That's where they would put the larvae to hatch. BTW they will eat through lead flashing to if they already started the hole.I had some lead flashing folded up & the bee made a hole under it so I figured that whey wouldn't go through the lead when I folded it down....Wrong...Nice 3/8' hole like it was drilled through it.

Ted Calver
05-30-2010, 9:35 AM
I use sevin dust. Put a short length of surgical tubing on the end of my duster and it fits perfectly into the entrance. Couple of puffs once a month has worked well...so far.

Mike Cruz
05-31-2010, 12:47 PM
Not to sound hateful, but I don't like waiting for a hole to be bored before getting rid of them. By then, the damage is done. Also, my house has vinyl siding over the original wood siding...I didn't do it, the previous owners did...so I can't even get to most of the holes in the house. They get in between cracks in the siding.

My shop, on the other hand is all wood...no protection other than paint. And my eaves are up at 10 feet. So they are not easily reached for spraying directly into a hole.

The pre-emptive tennis racket is quite effective. AND GREEN!

Don Alexander
06-01-2010, 11:05 PM
many years ago i accidently stumbled on an effective method for putting a stop to them coming back though it does require that you can get at the holes :D:D:D:D

plastic roof cement in the hole ruins their whole day they bore thru it and the cement renders them incapable of further life works particularly well in warm weather :D:D