Made from aromatic cedar (weather resistant and insect repelling), the rugged construction of a cedar bird feeder will provide you with years of bird watching enjoyment.
But, why does Cedar repel insects?
Insects are designed to work in conjunction with the colony as they emit off pheromones. If you can upset the pheromones of the insects, then they start looking for food without a map. It is a matter of time before they get lost from the colony and simply they cannot survive on their own, so they just die.
Ants, termites, roaches all give off pheromones. That is why you can see a long line of ants that seem to all walk in the same areas. As one ant leaves a pheromone trail the next ant smells it and leaves a stronger trail and so on. With the cedar oil emitting a stronger smell than the pheromones, this confuses the insects and they just evade the area entirely as long as this smell is present. It is like kryptonite to insects. They cannot function with the cedar smell being present.
Mosquitoes are sensitive to Carbon Dioxide. Yet the smell of the cedar throws them off on the carbon dioxide and they evade the areas where they smell cedar. This is why citronella candles work to ward off mosquitoes. The candle acts as an invisible barrier to stop the natural instincts of the mosquito from operating correctly.
Flies and gnats are attracted to food or raw garbage smells. The cedar smell being more potent, throws them off and these insects evade the area as long as the cedar smell is present.
Fleas and insects in the lawn such as grubs, chinch bugs and chiggers are insects that like to suck on their host. Chinch bugs suck the juice from the lawn, chiggers look for your legs, fleas look for your pet or a human and grubs are planted in the soil by June Bugs. The cedar confuses the insects and makes them delirious where they cannot function. They stop wanting to suck because of the cedar smell and they just eventually die because they can not reproduce without their meal from a host.
Snakes have an aversion to cedar as well. Since snakes utilize their tongues as their way of determining what is in the area, the cedar aroma confuses the snakes and they cannot detect their prey , so they choose to remove themselves from the cedar smell which in turn keeps them away from your yard.