Pine Bore Protection

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DMc

New Member
Jul 31, 2012
2
The Dry West
Hello, I have just started to get into wood heat again after several years in the gas stove arena. I have been able to get about 8 cords of pine cut down (actually most of it blew down) and have about 6 cords split and ready for next winter. It will have seasoned about 1 year before I start to burn any.

My question is about Western Pine Beetle or Pine Bores. I heard that it may be a good idea to spray my stacks of split wood to kill any beetle and prevent them from destroying the contents of the wood shed.

Do Pine Beetles go after already cut and dead (seasoning) wood or would they just go after live trees.

I have looked and read a lot of stuff on the Hearth Forum for quite awhile and just decided that now I could ask a question and maybe learn something specific to me needs. Anyway, thanks for all the good info listed here. Stove Wood.jpg
 
You'll get the most definitive, knowledgeable answers/information by contacting your local Extension Office. These things are somewhat regional, and in some places there are restrictions you might need to know about (even if you're not moving the wood far). Rick
 
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Welcome to the Hearth :cool:
Nice woodshed BTW. Can i get a full pic so that I can live vicariously through your pictures?
 
Here is a picture of the whole shed taken while in the middle of splitting wood. It is 27' long and 8' wide. As you can see, I still have a bunch of wood to split. Thanks Fossil for the suggestion to contact the local extension service. I never even thought about that.
 

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Good idea to talk to Extension. I burn a good bit of pine here in the East and the borers hit the pine pretty early in the drying process. After it has been on the stacks a while they leave it alone as it gets dry. With fresh split and stacked on a quiet night I can hear them gnawing when I walk by the stacks. And the splits look like somebody used them for target practice.
 
I know nothing about the bugs but thats a great looking shed you built
 
...Thanks Fossil for the suggestion to contact the local extension service. I never even thought about that.

Stick around on these forums...sooner or later I'll need you to suggest something I hadn't thought of. ;lol Rick

(very nice shed, BTW)
 
Great shed. By my calculations you can store just under 12 cord in that.
 
My sister in SD said they are in liveing trees, not the dead ones. But that said the forest service is removeing all the bug dead trees. What a mess. It dosen't look like there will be any trees left out there.
 
About half the wood we burn every winter is harvested from standing dead, beetle-kill pine. I have seen them bore into cut/split/stacked wood and leave little piles of sawdust behind. However, I've never had any issue with them migrating to any other species or into any structural components of the wood shed or the hay barn where we process our fuel supply.
 
With fresh split and stacked on a quiet night I can hear them gnawing when I walk by the stacks. And the splits look like somebody used them for target practice.

I remember the first time I heared this........... I thought I had a mouse in the wood pile till I saw those little holes with sawdust comming out. Had to split that piece about ten times to find out what the noise was. Beetle grubs, sounds like someone pulling out a squeakey nail really slowly.

TS
 
They're tearing my pines up here. From what I've read if there is no bark they leave the wood alone. They lay there eggs(?) under the bark so if the bark is not there they leave it alone? Not sure if it's fact but it's what I've read/heard.

I don't think they'll mess with the building any.
 
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