@ pk : O pk, I've seen carpenter bees attack painted wood. Your advice is worthless.

@ pk : Pk, I am a State Licensed Building contractor in N.E.Georgia...I have a lot of customers with bee problems...I do agree with you as far as the "pollinators" theory...but we cannot just sit back and let them destroy our homes. In most cases paint does not work, and stain is even less effective...even high quality stains such as Sikkens brand products don't work. Other solutions that are Eco friendly can be put in place for some of the situations, such as hiring a good contractor to site bend aluminum color coordinated metal and install it over the fascia and install vinyl in the soffit of the home....screen the underside of your deck will rolled screening...replace wooden deck members with composite materials, replace other components of the homes exterior with composite materials instead of chasing bee holes forever....all of these products are also highly resistant to rot and decay and add value to the home. The original builder in most cases does not care how long things last, they keep me in business...Another cause for the increasing amount of bee damage, is that the wood treatment for so called pressure treated wood of today's variety commonly used for deck building, no longer contains the highly resistant chemicals that it use to...due to its supposed more Eco friendly composition. When I build a deck from pressure treated lumber in the springtime here, sometimes the bees get into the wood before I finish the job!!! The real problem begins in summer, that is when the woodpeckers attach the bee infestations to eat the bee larvae!!!Good luck everyone...Ed Weiler