Puzzle Description:

A racquetball racquet is the perfect size to whack carpenter bees.

#1: Kristen Vognild (kristen) on Oct 23, 2019 [SPOILER]

Disclaimer: I would never harm a honeybee, or a regular bumblebee. Carpenter bees (or Driller bees) drill holes in dead wood, to create their nests. It's when they decide to drill those holes in my porch, that we have a problem.

A racquetball racquet is the perfect size to whack the little buggers, as they hover at eye level, taunting me. Then once the adults are killed, I'd fill the holes with Great Stuff(tm) and paint over the hole. Allegedly, they don't drill through paint.

I sure hope that is a forced perspective image. Otherwise, that is a VERY big bee.

They *seem* enormous. Probably an inch long, though.

While I don't condone killing any bees either (I just read somewhere that bees are the most important animal on Earth), I could easily live without the holes in my barn, too.
That being said, Kristen, how about a successor puzzle showing "after"? ;)

#5 eww

I've bought the battery powered zapper tennis rackets which pack quite a zot!

I'd be afraid that a racquetball racket would send him sailing, but not far enough away for him not to find me again.
Plus on the initial whack don't bees release a scent that attracts the other bees to swarm the attacker?

Yipes!

We had so many carpenter bees drilling perfect half inch holes into the fascia boards of our house, our house looked like it had suffered from shotgun blasts. We had to replace them with composite boards.

The "after" would be a still bee on the floor of the porch, or possibly in the grass if I gave it a really good smack.

In other words, exactly like the bee shown here, but with a brown or green background.

I don't think I've ever seen a bee that big. I hope I never do. Fun puzzle, Kristen.

see comment #4. :)

Carpenter bees are quite placid. They hover in place near their hole waiting for a mate to pass by. They will happily buzz around you if you intrude into "their" area. I have no problem working quite close to them (at other people's houses).

They are also solitary bees, so there's no one else to come after you if you kill them.

I used our badminton racquets for a slightly different use. I used two of them together to catch bats in mid-air as they swooped around in our house. Then I let them go outside. The space between the strings on the two racquets was perfect to keep them confined without squishing them.

"batminton"

Joe: That sounds nicely humane, as long as you don't whack your racquets together too forcefully.

David: a hyuk

Yes, that is what we called them when they were so employed.

There's about a half inch between the strings of the two racquets. Bats can fit through 1/4 inch cracks. So plenty of room for them and no fear of them getting squooshed no matter how you do it. (They also fold up their wings to land on the one they're facing when it is no longer avoidable.)

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