Cedar kills and repels insects in a multitude of ways
The wood of a cedar tree and the oil extracted from it successfully kills and repels insects in a multitude of ways. Overall they haven’t got a chance against this stuff !
Although insects are social animals, they communicate and navigate, for the most part, by secreting pheromones. They also breathe quite differently than mammals, instead of lungs they breathe through tubes on their body called tracheae.
The group of compounds that give cedar wood its pleasant woodsy smell, is harmless to mammals, but is very destructive to insects in many ways.
They become totally disoriented as it upsets their pheromone system.
It disrupts their ability to breathe.
Cedar oil is actually a natural dehumidifier. They simply die from dehydration.
There are other reasons, as if these are not enough, but basically the critters entire metabolism is permanently interrupted if they stay around. They absolutely can not survive very long with cedar oil.
