Locust Borer Beetle

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Rage_Perry

Rage_Perry

New Member
Dec 20, 2011
22
Central Iowa
Hey folks, I was looking over some of the timber in my backyard last night and I heard some rustling so I got a closer look thinking it might just be a garder snake in the leaves but it turns out that I have some Locust Borer Beetles.

I don't really know my wood species very well. I think that in the pile that I'm talking about I have a section of Birch, possibly some Cedar and either Pin Oak or Piss Elm.They seem to be mostly in the Birch area.

I still need to buck the logs and then split all of it.

What do you all do when you run into these? Do you have any non-insecticide/pesticide ways of dealing with them?

Thankfully the wood is back about 60 feet from my house and also away from the garage.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance.
 
Never mind. I found a decent writeup online that basically just suggests getting the wood C/S/S as soon as possible and then the drying of the wood will help take care of the problem on its own.

They are a harmless beetle to humans but they will turn your wood to dust over time.
 
Hmmm, I think I have seen damage from these in some of the BL I have been getting. I'll look more closely to see if trees that have had branches or tops snapped off have signs of this damage. I hope they don't keep eating the wood; That is the best wood in my stacks and I'm trying to get a lot of it.
 
Woody Stover said:
Hmmm, I think I have seen damage from these in some of the BL I have been getting. I'll look more closely to see if trees that have had branches or tops snapped off have signs of this damage. I hope they don't keep eating the wood; That is the best wood in my stacks and I'm trying to get a lot of it.
Click to expand...

From what I read, once the wood is dry or winter comes [whichever comes first for you] you won't see them any longer.
 
Rage_Perry said:
From what I read, once the wood is dry or winter comes [whichever comes first for you] you won't see them any longer.
Click to expand...

Because they relocated to your healthy trees standing 50 feet away?
 
Rage_Perry said:
From what I read, once the wood is dry or winter comes [whichever comes first for you] you won't see them any longer.
Click to expand...
Here's some BL I split yesterday. I've seen these tunnels in pretty much every BL I've cut, but it's not like the wood is Swiss cheese. I only see a tunnel every once in a while. Most splits are clean. Can't remember if I've ever seen one of the borers or not, but I cut dead BL so maybe they've moved on by that time.
 
Sorry, I haven't been on here for a while.

The beetle looks like this-
Beetle.locust.borer+compress.jpg
 
Woody Stover said:
Here's some BL I split yesterday. I've seen these tunnels in pretty much every BL I've cut, but it's not like the wood is Swiss cheese. I only see a tunnel every once in a while. Most splits are clean. Can't remember if I've ever seen one of the borers or not, but I cut dead BL so maybe they've moved on by that time.
Click to expand...
That's odd I've cut alot of bl in the last couple months most dead standing,air dried (the best) and only small areas of the wood do you find with that damage,as you mentioned the rest of the tree is fine beats me.Some have no damage whatsoever but are dead and petrified as hard as rocks.
 
The honey locusts we cut last year were covered with those beetles. Once the wood was split and stacked you should have heard the larvae munching on that wood.........on a quiet summer night it almost sounded like rain! Now that the wood is seasoned and dry I haven't seen nor heard any activity in that 9 cord of locust.
 
ohlongarm said:
That's odd I've cut alot of bl in the last couple months most dead standing,air dried (the best) and only small areas of the wood do you find with that damage,as you mentioned the rest of the tree is fine beats me.Some have no damage whatsoever but are dead and petrified as hard as rocks.
Click to expand...
A couple of days ago I saw a similar-looking tunnel the same size in a piece of White Oak...huh.
 
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