the thing is that they are attracted to your house, and won't want to all be in one spot,if you built a shed out of a material that they like and made the surroundings similar to that of your house they would probably nest there, but still in your house aswell, to fix that problem you would have to make your house unattractive to them, resideing it with soemthing they don't like would probably do the trick for the msot part, just cover all the wood with aluminum. You did say you had extra piles of cash lieing around right, good I charge 100 dollars for this kind of advice, you can make the deposit to my nmbered swiss account 3423..... :)

Thanks for the advice, Brendan, but my house is in a historic district and the city would lock me up if I put alluminum over the wood trim... the main part is brick. I tryed filling the holes with wood putty once, but they just drilled back. A few are entertaining...how many is too many?

How many constitute too many is really subjective, For me one is too many, because by damaging the house they increse the need for fosil fuels, some people wouldn't mind it if there were a million little holes in there house, something you might do, something that they do for rats, is to mix little bits of crushed glass into the patching compound and then refill the hole, when they go to bore throught they wont be able to go throught the glass, or you could put some diatomaceous earth into the hole, it messes with there resperatory systems or so I am told, they should leave those holes alone. Goodluck

say bye-bye to your house if you are determined to love these things!

The carpenter bees are wonderful pollinators working on cold days to pollinate my fruit trees when it is too cold for the other bees. One cool spring, they were the bees working my apple trees. I had a great crop that year.
Their houses are a 1/2 inch hole drilled an inch or two into old untreated wood. The hole then turns at a 90 degree angle. That sounds difficult to build. I wonder if just drilling the straight inch or two hole would encourage them to finish the 90 degree turn. That last part is their brood chamber.

Kevin, do you have a photo of the stand up frames that you could share?

I know the initial post is old, but I wanted to add. I bought a mason bee house that is sometimes used by mason bees. BUT......I've been finding carpenter bees in them, filling up the holes. They have drilled holes in the fascia boards on our house, but they did start using the mason bee house. So I might try buying a couple more of these and put them closer to the house. It would be GREAT if they used the mason bee houses instead of the people house! Here's a pic I snapped of one looking at me. That hole is filled now.

Ceratina species (small carpenter bees) nest in hollow tubes; the large carpenter bees (Xylocopa species) make their own holes.

If you don't want the big guys drilling your house, paint the wood.

About those carpenter bees--I've never had a problem, but am pleased to share a theory, base on a live-and-let-live philosophy. Some facts: Carpenter bees prefer to bore nesting holes in weathered, untreated softwoods (cedar, pine, etc). They bore in an inch or so and then make a 90-degree turn. They lay eggs, one at a time, and seal them in, backing out as they do. Then they go about their main helpful business-pollination of plants. Then they die out in the fall. Around mid-March they emerge and repeat the cycle. Theory. First, do a google search are read about Mason Bee Homes (mentioned above). Back to the Carpenter Bee theory. In September or october, purchase or otherwise aquire a well-weathered 4x4 (softwood) and saw it into 12" segments. Otherwise, purchase a new softwood 4x4 in fall, saw it into segments and leave them outdoors where it can weather until February. Then convert them into Carpenter Bee hotels (drill a few holes for the smaller varieties that prefer to lay their eggs in old holes, but leave a lot of area for the larger variety that prefer to drill their own) and hang or mount them in conspicuous places around the the areas where the Carpenter Bees are likely to attack wood surfaces you want to protect. In theory, the Carpenter Bees will drill and lay their eggs in the preferred weathered softwood hotels. Around October, but certainly by February, take these Carpenter Bee hotels down and haul them into the woods or the park or some other distant location and begin preparing new hotels to be mounted before mid-March. The kicker is this--Carpenter Bees tend to return to build their nexts in the same areas where they are "born" to bore their holes and lay their eggs. If this works--and why shouldn't it--you can export your Carpenter Bee problem while preserving the Carpenter Bee who will continue the valuable work of pollinating plants.

Let me start by saying I have no claim to any expertise re these creatures. But, I did want to add that one reason bees might return to the same place, is that they are somewhat particular in their choice of location. They need a place with the right sun exposure, but protected from wind and rain, but with the right type of wood, and so on. So, moving them into the woods might not work as well as one could hope. I hung Mason bee houses on my property, but didn't get much action, I think because my yard is nearly all shade, or close to a fast-moving road. I do think the careful painting and providing a sturdy structure of attractive wood nearby seems very logical.

Martha

We have found that stuffing steel wool in the existing holes moves them to their new houses...

Thank you for keeping this post active and continuing to add to it! Very helpful for a project I am working on!

I've read several threads on various websites that if you take a large brown paper bag, crumple it up, spray paint it silver, stuff it with some light weight material ( plastic shopping bags ), & hang it in the area that the carpenter bees are accessing your house that they think you have a hornets nest & will leave your house be. there were many replies to the post stating that they had tried it & it worked.

Please, if you know how I can buy or make a house for the carpenter bee, I would love it. They are such special critters. I am so sick of people killing everything because it’s in the Way, that’s what Monsanto did and killed most of our bees. our world is wrecked because of humans. We need to change things now.

They like dead wood, so if you've got any old stumps, or broken limbs, they would like that. I had some go into a couple of old redwood pieces from a cut-up swing set. If you can find an untreated 4 x 4, or 6 x 6, about a couple of feet long, they would probably go for that. Just lay it on the ground and see what happens. We had an old unpainted banister just sitting on the back porch, and one little bee mother made her nest in it - it was fun watching the sawdust pile up. I also love these bees (well, all bees, but these are special), and I hope that you can find something that works.

This is our adopted carpentar bee Pip Winter. We found him frozen on the ground in the snow on March 3rd, he thawed out, and we have been keeping him alive in a terrarium for over a month. We hold him, and until the flowers started blooming, have been feeding him by hand from a q-tip. We are having a hard time releasing him, but it is time to say goodbye. I’d love for him to stay nearby, and am thinking about introducing a small bee house in his terrarium, then taking him and the house outside and hoping he continues to use it. I wish more people knew how gentle carpentar bees are. We also adopted a female for about 2 weeks when we found her out and unable to fly on a cold day. The males don’t have stingers, so we have been holding Pip every day, but even though the females are very docile, we didn’t pick her up mich. Her name is Honeysuckle Spring. My kids are very good at naming bees!!

Pip has the whote square on his face, that is how you can identify males (they arw also the ones dive-bombing you- their only defense), and females have a completely black face. Our female was also a bit smaller than the male. The female also has larger mandibles. We dwcided she looked much more fierce and our male looked cuter…!