Ant nest in wood pile.

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Welderman85

Feeling the Heat
Nov 1, 2017
350
Chesaning MI
Hello all my mom just has a huge sliver maple dropped. The guys that did it were awesome and cut everything in 16" lengths for me including the trunk and loaded most of it on my trailer while I was at work. The issue is the was a big ants nest in the trunk and got loaded up to. What can I do to kill what ever ants are left in there till I get to process it. Thanks
 
Throw the splits in the grass and let the birds feast
They will leave the wood now that it is drying
 
Throw the splits in the grass and let the birds feast
They will leave the wood now that it is drying
Yeah, no need to kill them, they will leave pretty quickly. When I split it, I might knock the splits together to get rid of the ants, but that's about it.
 
They'll probably be gone by the time you split the wood, if not do what Woody said.
 
I always seem to run into at least a couple rounds a season that have the black ants in them, I just split and knick them out, once the wood is split they leave the area anyway, its not a big deal for me.
 
Hello all my mom just has a huge sliver maple dropped. The guys that did it were awesome and cut everything in 16" lengths for me including the trunk and loaded most of it on my trailer while I was at work. The issue is the was a big ants nest in the trunk and got loaded up to. What can I do to kill what ever ants are left in there till I get to process it. Thanks

I had a maple tree that was severely damaged by carpenter ants and eventually fell during a wind storm. After cutting much of it into rounds and leaving them on pallets, the ants seem to have moved on. I keep all wood far away from the house. Hopefully they didn't decide that relocating to the house was worth the trip.
 
I personally keep a can of ant spray handy when I'm splitting for those infested rounds out of fear of where they'll relocate to... If I know I have infested wood I'll take a bag of the shaker granule ant killer and circle the pile.
 
I usually split in January and February.. it's cold and they don't move around alot. so I knock the splits together and crush them with my boots.. I split near the house so I don't want them relocating into my place of residence... that would suck..I move the wood out to the shed.. the rest will move on
 
Buck, split and toss aside if I find ants.

Funny thing about ants (and people) . . . they like to stay warm and cozy.

I always figure the birds might get to them as well.

In any case, in 12 years now I have yet to see a single ant in my stacked wood piles outside, in my woodshed or inside the house.
 
I have tend to spray the round and put it aside for awhile before splitting. It creeps me out when they're crawling around my feed and on my arms when I'm splitting.