Hickory and Carpenter ants/beetles

[Indianawood]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep the Carpenter ants from destroying my shagbark hickory? This is only 9 months old. Stacking on concrete or limestone help? Any help appreciated

 

[Stinkpickle]

They usually leave mine alone after it’s been drying for a year, but they still leave a mess.

 

[Grizzerbear]

Next time you cut hickory let it set for about 3 months. Then when you split it the bark should peel right off. That and keeping it from getting rained on in the stack is the most important. I never have too much of this problem.

Edit: I never split hickory green. To be honest most of mine are dead falls a year or older. This makes getting the bark off real easy.

 

[hickoryhoarder]

I stack my wood on 4x4's pressure treated, on the driveway. I don't put shagbark hickory in the bottom two rows (pignut hickory seems to be all right there). When I find ants in a split, I just put it by itself in the sun, where the birds can get at it easily. The ants disappear after a while. They will live deep inside the split in winter, I've found, if it's not set out on its own for birds to chow down.

I agree with Grizzerbear -- good to keep hickory dry.

 

[Simonkenton]

Through the years I have stayed away from hickory, because I can't split it with the maul. Several years ago I did buy a dumptruck load of hickory that was cut and split. Small dump truck 8 x 8 feet. A lot of wood. About 4 Nissan Frontier truck loads.
I stacked it up on 4x4s in my woodpile that is under the carport roof. I had to work with the wood as I stacked it because about one in four pieces I had to split with the maul. Taking on a stick that is just 1/6 of the original log, I can split OK.

The wood looked fine I didn't notice any bugs and I was looking forward to burning some hickory.
After a year I noticed the wood was all covered with sawdust. This hickory was totally infested with bark beetles. I was afraid that the beetles would get into my other wood piles, or maybe infest my house.

I never stacked any of the hickory inside the house, I would put it on the porch which is pressure treated, and just bring a stick inside when I was about to put it in the wood stove. What a PITA. Had to knock all kinds of fine sawdust powder off of every stick.

I will never burn hickory again.

 

[Tar12]

Through the years I have stayed away from hickory, because I can't split it with the maul. Several years ago I did buy a dumptruck load of hickory that was cut and split. Small dump truck 8 x 8 feet. A lot of wood. About 4 Nissan Frontier truck loads.
I stacked it up on 4x4s in my woodpile that is under the carport roof. I had to work with the wood as I stacked it because about one in four pieces I had to split with the maul. Taking on a stick that is just 1/6 of the original log, I can split OK.

The wood looked fine I didn't notice any bugs and I was looking forward to burning some hickory.
After a year I noticed the wood was all covered with sawdust. This hickory was totally infested with bark beetles. I was afraid that the beetles would get into my other wood piles, or maybe infest my house.

I never stacked any of the hickory inside the house, I would put it on the porch which is pressure treated, and just bring a stick inside when I was about to put it in the wood stove. What a PITA. Had to knock all kinds of fine sawdust powder off of every stick.

I will never burn hickory again.

I avoid it for the same reason..