pine bugs and wood

pellet9999 said:

I have some wood I cut 1-2 years ago. It was dry when I dropped it. Lodgepole bug kill. It has been outside in days of 35 below and weeks of 25 below nights.
^ months a year in freezing temps.

Can I move this cord in to my attached shed now without worrying about bugs. It really didnt even have any visible bugs when I cut it. My shed has a dirt floor and the wall into the house is cement block but it is framed with wood. I wont move this years cut inside.

What do you think..??

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I use to cut a good deal of standing beetle kill LP Pine in Central Oregon. I was told if you cover it with black plastic for the summer, that the larvae would be killed by the heat. The temps occasionally got down to -10 or more degrees. I never found any live grubs in my wood. I do not think you have anything to worry about.

Beetle killed wood is all we cut anymore.
I have researched this quite a bit because i store my wood outside and at my house.
I have an apple, choke cherry, cottonwood and pines on my property. First of all my trees are thriving and no evidence of beetle infestation.
I was told from several sources that treating like DMZX said is a good option. But for the most part pine beetles leave the tree once its dead and move on to
other trees, pines in good shape with a good water supply can withstand an attack of several thousand beetles. Its the trees that have been in drought conditions that
are easily killed. So, if it was dead and dry when dropped and sat for a year or two. I also don't think you need to worry.

According to the Colorado State forestry folks, who published a booklet on this subject last year, the pine borers [lodgepole pine] can stay in infested and recently dead trees over the winter and well into the following summer. They recommend that one leave the dead trees alone for a year after they have died. That way one minimizes the risk of transporting the beetles to an area they haven't yet invaded. I live in amongst those trees, so I either leave them standing for a year or drop them and leave them lying in the woods for that year.

The beetles that are ravaging the west and northwest, the ones in lodgepole pines [and Ponderosa] and the other species killing spruce [spruce budworm] are tiny. No larger than a grain of rice [very short-grained rice or even smaller]. You can see them, but you often do not. There are other beetles, of course, that bore into trees and they and their larvae can be the size of your thumb. Those beetles are not, as far as I know, a huge problem. At least, not as huge as the pine beetles and budworm. And they are not the ones you need to worry over.

I would suggest you leave the recently dead trees alone til the latter part of the summer following the trees' death. Unless you want to go to some heroic efforts to cover and heat up the trees or tent them and use an insecticide--expensive, labor-intensive, and poisonous.

I cannot really tell you if the above advice is totally effective because I live in the area where the beetles are very active. [In other words, I cannot tell whether I've hindered their spread or helped it because they are all around anyway.] By the way, it takes several weeks of 35-below-zero F. to kill off the over-wintering grubs and adults. That is one reason we have such a serious problem out here: the past decade or more we have not had those severely cold weeks in the winter. I think the coldest I've seen it get here in the past couple decades might be minus 15, and that only for a couple nights. Back in the 70s, for example, I would see as low as minus 40 F. for a few nights and maybe a week or two now and then when nights would get to minus 15 or 20. No major [long-lasting] beetle infestations then.

So, you said this wood had been lying out there for one to two years. It probably wasn't cold enough to kill off all the beetles, but they will have moved on by now as they want to relocate to living trees. Seems to me you are safe to move it.