Pine Boring Larve...

[Warm_in_NH]

I scored some free pine a while ago and after it kicked my arse splitting it, it's now stacked and drying.

During the splitting process I found tons of beetle Larve under the bark. Now that's it's stacked I can hear these guys gnawing through the wood and they're making good size piles of saw dust.

Should I be concerned that this stuff is stacked 5 feet from my garage (I think not, but not sure)? Should I worry about bringing the wood inside and having it sit in a wood rack for a week or so in an old 1800s home with LOTS of wood?

I keep telling myself that they're only interested in live or recently live pine bit any additional input would be appreciated.

 

[hockeypuck]

I think..your house is fine. Once it dries to a certain point....they will be gone

 

[billb3]

View attachment 160496 View attachment 160495

Should I be concerned that this stuff is stacked 5 feet from my garage (I think not, but not sure)? Should I worry about bringing the wood inside and having it sit in a wood rack for a week or so in an old 1800s home with LOTS of wood?

.

They're going to hang out in your closet and stare at you while you are sleeping.

If a toe should lip out from under a blanket they will bite it.

 

[DougA]

Not too much of a choice. If you spray to kill them, the toxic spray residue will be in your house. If you are really concerned, you could line a wood crate with sheet metal and keep indoor wood stacked inside it so they can't escape. Most bugs like that will not eat dry wood inside the house. We get a lot of moths that hatch in the winter in our house from the wood we bring inside to burn and a sticky fly strip hanging near the wood pile takes care of most of them.

 

[billb3]

They are quite content to be eating cellulose under bark. It's what they do.
Cold, they slow down. Bring them in the house and they will warm up and start eating under bark with enthusiasm.
They are not going to leave their little bark covered home in search of another and until Spring they won't be large enough to turn into a beetle, find another beetle and make baby beetles. Most bugs brought into the home end up either in the fire or dried up and up the vacuum cleaner/stepped on. Or cat/mouse/other bug food/toys.

The bugs I might be concerned with bringing in the house would be powder post beetles and their relative furniture and deathwatch beetles, especially in a basement with exposed beams/joists. Even then the odds on a complete life cycle in a basement is slim but not impossible.


As a probably unnecessary precaution and firewood or even logs I'm cutting if I see what might be those tiny powder post beetle holes I won't even bring those pieces into the porch, they'll stay outside or put to the side for when I can put them straight into the stove/fire.

It's something to watch for cutting dead standing wood and I've split piece smaller in the hopes of reducing their pop and left some splits on the forest floor or tossed them into a fire (Winter cutting) we keep going for them and a occasional nasty nest of carpenter ants.


If I were to notice a obvious infestation in a wood stack( I haven't seen one in a covered stack yet ) I'd be tempted ( in the Summer) to tent the stack and fumigate it.

 

[Highbeam]

Not too much of a choice. If you spray to kill them, the toxic spray residue will be in your house. If you are really concerned, you could line a wood crate with sheet metal and keep indoor wood stacked inside it so they can't escape. Most bugs like that will not eat dry wood inside the house. We get a lot of moths that hatch in the winter in our house from the wood we bring inside to burn and a sticky fly strip hanging near the wood pile takes care of most of them.

Meh, water is toxic too but it's residue is everywhere. It's all about dose. There is nothing wrong with the prescribed dose of bug spray to kill bugs. That said, it would be tough for a spray to affect the bugs under the bark.

 

[DougA]

water is toxic too

I guess you could drown the bugs but I hadn't considered that. The family of sprays I would use to kill bugs in a wood pile would not be something I would ever bring into the house. For example Malathion is widely used for bugs and is 'rated' as low toxicity. It's even available off the shelf in Ontario, where most spays are banned or require a licence to apply. I used to use Malathion a few decades ago and now get migraines even walking in the area of a store shelf selling it. If that doesn't cause alarm bells, nothing will.

wiki: Malathion itself is of low toxicity; however, absorption or ingestion into the human body readily results in its metabolism to malaoxon, which is substantially more toxic.[18] In studies of the effects of long-term exposure to oral ingestion of malaoxon in rats, malaoxon has been shown to be 61 times more toxic than malathion.

I now have a very critical opinion of most data provided by manufacturers after my own experiences. I'm no organic farmer and still use a very limited number of sprays when absolutely necessary but spraying wood and then bringing that sprayed wood indoors in a closed environment in winter is potentially lethal.

 

[Warm_in_NH]

Debating a tarp and a bug bomb. Then maybe leave it uncovered for a couple rain storms after the fact to rinse any surface residue off.
Not sure the bug bomb would get them under the bark though....

 

[Warm_in_NH]

Can anyone ID these guys, it's in NE CT.can hear em gnawing from 10 feet away. Ugly Lil guys, starting to think we have some nice campfire wood stacked up....

 

[DoubleB]

I don't know what they are, but looking at your pictures I have the exact same thing on the pine I scored/split/stacked this summer.

What I'm curious is if anyone can confirm that if we let the firewood dry long enough, that the wood will no longer attract or retain any of these guys? How dry does it need to be for it to no longer harbor these borers? (My pine has 2 more full summers to dry, but I don't know about Warm_in_NH's wood.)

 

[Babaganoosh]

When I wrapped my solar kiln test wood in shrink wrap it drove out and killed a lot of bugs. Might want to try that if your stacks get a lot of sun. It gets very hot in there. I've had 160 degrees inside one.

 

[billb3]

the borers under the bark on white pine rounds/splits here are gone when the bark falls off ..........

pretty much everything el;se finds it's way out in the Spring to make babies as far as I know.
I never find borers in splits that are old.

Rounds is a different story and why I don't like leaving rounds or logs laying around.


We have a pine bark borer that likes logs and we have ( pretty sure it's a different beetle grub/borer) another one that likes live trees.

 

[firefighterjake]

I like to think of the pine borers as helping me ventilate my wood better for maximum drying . . .

All kidding aside, I just wait until it's cold outside before bringing the pine inside . . . once it gets close to freezing I don't hear them munching any more. I have yet to see one of these buggers in the house.

 

[sportbikerider78]

They are quite content to be eating cellulose under bark. It's what they do.
Cold, they slow down. Bring them in the house and they will warm up and start eating under bark with enthusiasm.
They are not going to leave their little bark covered home in search of another and until Spring they won't be large enough to turn into a beetle, find another beetle and make baby beetles. Most bugs brought into the home end up either in the fire or dried up and up the vacuum cleaner/stepped on. Or cat/mouse/other bug food/toys.

The bugs I might be concerned with bringing in the house would be powder post beetles and their relative furniture and deathwatch beetles, especially in a basement with exposed beams/joists. Even then the odds on a complete life cycle in a basement is slim but not impossible.


As a probably unnecessary precaution and firewood or even logs I'm cutting if I see what might be those tiny powder post beetle holes I won't even bring those pieces into the porch, they'll stay outside or put to the side for when I can put them straight into the stove/fire.

It's something to watch for cutting dead standing wood and I've split piece smaller in the hopes of reducing their pop and left some splits on the forest floor or tossed them into a fire (Winter cutting) we keep going for them and a occasional nasty nest of carpenter ants.


If I were to notice a obvious infestation in a wood stack( I haven't seen one in a covered stack yet ) I'd be tempted ( in the Summer) to tent the stack and fumigate it.

I had some carpenter ants in my home when I bought it. In addition to taking care of that very quickly, I dropped and burned every dead standing rotting tree within 100 feet of my house. There were a couple of trees that looked pretty good, but had ants up and down the trunks. Took them out as well. Campfire wood.

Its been a year, and it is really rare to see a big ant any were near my house.