What boring insect is this? Termite ? beetle ?
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![[Hearth.com] What boring insect is this? Termite ? beetle ?](/talk/data/attachments/8/8179-7524839603896368a6f5a2da2439ceed.jpg?hash=kKer-mUTAk)
I would not ditch that wood. It will be fine. I usually kill all those that I find but don't worry about them if I don't get them.
blacktop said:
Definitely a larvae, I get them under the bark of my oak firewood... I debarked lots of my wood and found loads of grubs and the birds love eating those grubs! The small amount they eat as they bore is not a problem and may even help to season the wood..
Ray
I have lots of bark beetles under my cherry bark. They don't eat the wood though.
We have a nasty huge borer beetle here that gets into the red oak. Larvae is the size of your small finger. They pop out of the heartwood in the Spring and then the carpenter ants get into their tunnels. Primary cause of oaks falling around here before this new disease that is now taking them out.
Small holes might be house or barn beetle. I've never seen them in anything but standing exposed dead wood. Supposedly they are why my cellar floor joists are coated with tar, because of a barn beetle. They didn't get into any wood besides the exposed joists.
Most bugs crawl off and die, out of their element.
Except for the ones with wings getting ready to colonize elsewhere in the Spring termites look like small albino ants.
We have a nasty huge borer beetle here that gets into the red oak. Larvae is the size of your small finger. They pop out of the heartwood in the Spring and then the carpenter ants get into their tunnels. Primary cause of oaks falling around here before this new disease that is now taking them out.
Small holes might be house or barn beetle. I've never seen them in anything but standing exposed dead wood. Supposedly they are why my cellar floor joists are coated with tar, because of a barn beetle. They didn't get into any wood besides the exposed joists.
Most bugs crawl off and die, out of their element.
Except for the ones with wings getting ready to colonize elsewhere in the Spring termites look like small albino ants.
This type of larvae need either rotting wood or growing wood to survive. Only termites eat dead dry wood. Carpenter ants make tunnels but don't eat the wood. Your house should be fine unless you bring termites to it.
There are several gazillion bugs out there in the yard, keep them there until you are going to burn them. I always toss wood I see bugs in right into the stove from the outside.
:ahhh: .......people on Survivor would probably be happy to get these as food. 
Lots of bugs in dead firewood and some in the bark of good wood. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
The dead elm we just cut had grubs like these in a few pieces. Wife and I cut, split, and stacked it in our 25 year old
wood shed as we have always done.
We have learned to only bring wood into the house as we put it in the stove. This keeps them frozen or in the wood
till they hit the creamatory. It solved our spider problems.
One other on here stated that they put the wood into a rubbermaid container with a lid to control the bugs. That may
work also. I think it is a good idea so will get a large pail or something to carry in one load of wood at a time which
will keep the mess off the hearth since I usually carry in a few splits, sit them down while arranging them for a burn.
Then I can return the empty pail with the droppings back to the porch for the next load.
Lots of bugs in dead firewood and some in the bark of good wood. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
The dead elm we just cut had grubs like these in a few pieces. Wife and I cut, split, and stacked it in our 25 year old
wood shed as we have always done.
We have learned to only bring wood into the house as we put it in the stove. This keeps them frozen or in the wood
till they hit the creamatory. It solved our spider problems.
One other on here stated that they put the wood into a rubbermaid container with a lid to control the bugs. That may
work also. I think it is a good idea so will get a large pail or something to carry in one load of wood at a time which
will keep the mess off the hearth since I usually carry in a few splits, sit them down while arranging them for a burn.
Then I can return the empty pail with the droppings back to the porch for the next load.
Well, those ain't no termites...most of the termites we're concerned with are about the size of a typical black house ant (or smaller). Those are the larval stage of something else (likely some sort of beetle, as so many others have said). Split and stack the wood, and they'll lose their comfortable habitat, and likely just go somewhere and die...not like their really mobile at this stage of their lives. I've split lodgepole pine rounds to find whole colonies of carpenter ants living inside...fascinating what they do inside the wood...they just seem to go away after I've destroyed their little kingdom (queendom?). Once in a great while I've seen a lone survivor crawl out of a split just before I commit him to my fiery furnace. Rick
hell that is nothing! what you need to watch out for is the damn carpenter ants that love to inhabit soft maple..they get in the wood and it is wet and warm! I have seen it where the entire slits become covered as your move them and get them going.
If you get rid of your wood, I'll take it. Seriously, all firewood is going to have bugs in it. After my wood is stacked in my dry storage area for a year and a half, I'll still find live borers that have been living between the bark and the wood. That's the only place where they will live. In the summer, I will ususally have a few moth-like things that fly around the woodpile, which I suspect is one of the bugs that has been living in there as a grub.
So if you get rid of your wood, your new wood will have the same thing.
Termites are white bugs that looks like tiny ants with big butts. They may be found in wet wood that's sitting in the dirt. They won't bother your wood pile, unless your wood is covered in dirt and wet.
So if you get rid of your wood, your new wood will have the same thing.
Termites are white bugs that looks like tiny ants with big butts. They may be found in wet wood that's sitting in the dirt. They won't bother your wood pile, unless your wood is covered in dirt and wet.
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