Spectracide Carpenter Bee & Gound-Nesting Yellowjacket Killer, 16 Oz

Spectracide: Killed the carpenter bees and their nests. The bees were drilling into my deck and damaging the deck (I kept coming out and finding new piles of sawdust). Little did I know what came next: the bees larvae started attracting woodpeckers who then want to get to the larvae and so they do even more damage to the wood! The woodpeckers will be relentless in their pecking to get to the bees larvae and totally destroy decking posts and any type of wood. They will peck at wood non stop till they get what they want. So it’s not the bees that really destroy your wood - it’s what comes after they bees have tunneled in deep to lay their eggs and then they leave. Then the woodpecker birds come and won’t leave till they get what they want. And by then it’s too late. So you have to stop the carpenter bees before she finishes tunneling. Or if she has finished then you have to kill the larvae yourself (as mean as this sounds). You need to spray this in the hole. Follow the exact instructions. But it goes something like this: Spray it in till it leaks out. Then plug up the hole, with a wood dowel piece or something else similar or what have you. It works and is very effective if you follow the instructions. I don’t find the odor or scent to be that bad but then again I just spray and get away. If you follow the instructions on the can I feel it is very safe to use. * I personally prefer to either wear gloves (rubber, nitrile or gardening) or have a rag in my hand to place on the button while I spray it (to catch any extra spray so it doesn’t go on my hands) and I do wear safety glasses (or big sunglasses) - just to be safe. And that’s not just for this, thats what I always do whenever I spray any type of chemical of any kind. I feel this is a very effective way to handle carpenter bees, and thus then the unwanted follow up of woodpeckers, to be able to solve the problem of wildlife damaging wood around your home (in my case the cedar posts supporting my deck). So 5 Stars!

Perfect for my needs! Had carpenter bees burrowing in my deck and needed them gone fast. Easy to apply - point and spray! Nice thick foam covers the holes. Killed the bees by morning. Only slight disappointment was it was a little messy and got on my hands. Washed them twice and no issues.

Make sure you have the correct Spectracide product. You do not want to use wasp spray on carpenter bees for example. I had carpenter bees entering a hole in a flower bed near the patio. There was a steady number in and out all day for a couple weeks. Waited until around midnight and went out with a headlamp. I used the Spectracide carpenter bee/yellowjacket product, inserted the provided straw into the nozzle which puts the product right where you want it and made sure the bees were dormant before getting near the hole. Saturated it. Next morning not one bee nor anytime since.

It works - I could witness how ground nesting yellowjackets get incapacitated and die when this pesticide is sprayed on them. The efficacy can vary depending on how long and wide the underground tunnel from the surface to the next is. If the tunnel is not straight and shot, even foaming action may not be sufficient to reach the nest. I tried injecting it into the hole in the ground, and after excavation I can see a dozen or two yellowjackets killed by it, but foam did not propagate all the way (it seemed that nothing has changed by the next day) and I still had to dig into the ground to get access to the nest. I am very glad that I got a bee suit ahead of time, as there was a point when a cloud of yellowjackets emerged from the ground when their nest was hit with a shovel. They would kill me without a suit, but in suit they seem to not even notice me. A few of them ended up sitting on the suit but could not sting me. My judgment based on limited experience is that typically, it can be more of an aid to the process of digging rather than a simple to use, single step solution (which probably does not exist). The recommended on the can way of using it is via a straw inserted into the nozzle. This creates an option of injecting foam into the hole. The stream is not strong enough to hit nests in the trees or above your head or from a significant distance, and in any case, spraying the entrance would not eradicate the whole nest. If the nest is large, you probably will be better off sucking them out of the nest with wet vacuum with soapy water to drown them. It is really difficult to completely destroy the next by injecting foam into it because you would need to dig into the access tunnel gradually and get close to the nest to make sure the spray reaches it. Since yellowjackets will not like it, you probably need a bee suit no matter what if you try to get so close to the nest to insert the straw into the hole. If you have a bee suit, well, then you have a very wide scope of options, including just destroying the nest and letting them fly away to find another home. Before you hit the nest with showel or garden hoe, the foam might not reach the nest (or maybe it will if you are lucky, but there is no guarantee), and after you hit the nest, all those yellowjackets are all airborne flying around you and there is nothing to spray on, except the remains of the nest, if anything or anyone is still there. I got one can from amazon and a day later got another one from a local hardware store. In retrospective, it was not even decisive in the outcome, just help, but not a solution. A garden hoe and a bee suit were much more effective. Your case may be different.

Got stung mowing by ground bees and had to avoid the area . Needless to say I was annoyed by the situation. I sprayed the area and tried to get most of it down the hole they dug. The bees tried to attack but were drowning in the foam of the spray . So I then placed a huge rock in front of the hole for extra reassurance. Few days later I went to check and saw dead bees outside of the rock I placed. I'm not sure if the product worked since I placed a rock to cover their home but it all in all helped me get rid of them . Would recommend it's the cheapest compared to smoking them out. And if you use my method it will work because the foam from the spray hinders their quick movement so it will give you time to use a secondary method like digging to destroy the nest or smoking them out or blocking the entry way etc.