Wood Borer?

[Mike Minto]

I bought two blocks of Osage Orange at the 2008 AAW Symposium, and stored them in a closet in the house. Now, after a few weeks I looked at them, and much to my surprise, found a pile of sawdust a good 1/2 inch tall by a good 1 1/2 inch wide on the top surface of the blocks. Anyone have an idea of what could be eating my wood? What should I do - enclose the wood in a plastic bag and try to suffocate the gluttons, or poison them somehow? Should I worry that my house might suddenly collapse? Yours only half in jest, Mike!

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Mike, I was looking through some osage orange in one of our containers yesterday trying to get some sood to fill an order. I moved the top stack and started seeing some of the little piles of sawdust like you described. It's powder post beetle. The little ---- critters are getting in the sapwood as the sapwood contains sugars and starches the living wood uses. Look at your wood and see if you can't find little holes in the sapwood about 1/16" across. That's where the beetle exits. Tell the truth, I've dealt with osage orange very little and didn't know the powder post would go for it. The worst thing to get powder post we have is mesquite....a very high concentartion of sugars. But also in the same container is some black walnut and I saw the sawdust piles there too. I have some mesquite in the container but I borate treated it and there's no evidence of infestation there. Also I have had powder post in red oak and ash is especially bad. The oak seems to be a tree by tree case; it's probably marginal for them.

The only sure way to kill the critters is by heat. Kiln drying at 140 degrees for 4-5 hours will do it. You can't suffocate the bugs....there's way too much air inside the wood. And there's no way to poison them as no chemical treatment will penetrate the wood deep enough to kill them. The borate treatment I mentioned keeps them from entering the wood but if they do manage to get in it's ineffective. There's very little chance of getting them in wood objects in your house; the longer wood sets the more the sugars and starches degrade, although it takes a long time. And the little buggers are everywhere - I had mesquite sapwood get infested twice in the house and I know I didn't bring them in. Pet peeve..... Just because you've killed them once doesn't mean they won't be back. When wood sets it takes up enough moisture that the powder post larvae can live in the wood. Mesquite is the worst. No matter how many times it's dried the only way to keep powder post out is removing the sapwood. My guess is that other species (other than ash) get less appealing with age, although I did have some kiln dried northern red oak that got them.

[Nathan Hawkes]

Probably some sort of powder post beetle. You could try soaking the wood with boric acid/borates. I found a recipie with boric acid powder & "20 mule team" borate soap, which worked well for termites that infested a couple slabs of cherry that had punky centers when I milled them. It worked well.

FYI; most of the recipies call for using ethylene glycol (antifreeze) as a base liquid. I didn't follow this, as I have several animals that might have licked it. Don't let it freeze (not that it matters in the summer). To get the boric acid and borate soap into solution, you heat it up in a large pot to almost boiling, which yields a 'supersaturated' solution. When this freezes, it will crystalize, and NOT go back into solution as it thaws----in other words you'll have a big crystal slurpee. So, next time, I'll use antifreeze & just not use it when the cats & dogs are around.


There are other, probably more effective treatments, but this one is the least obtrusively toxic to people. Just don't drink it. I don't think it would be good for you.

[Chip Sutherland]

and spin the little creepers to death. Actually that doesn't work but I have found that a gouge will slice them nicely. Bug juice didn't stain the wood any but left a few rust spots on the lathe weighs.

I tried to poison them in a mesquite log with bug spray in a plastic bag but forgot about the bag for a few months. Luckily my bugs were artistic bugs. I pulled 15 big worms from the wood in the end plus a few partials.

Soaking in DNA pickles them, too. I have found that putting CA glue in the hole isn't the best idea to kill them since it may show up in the final product. I say turn the wood very soon.

PS. I keep my wood in the garage to limit their advancing on my home's studs. I've never found termites in any wood I have harvested just ants, worms and beetles.

[Mike Minto]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. I just bought 2 gallons of DNA ($30! - yikes!), and think I'll try to kill them by soaking the OO. BTW - Nice turning, Chip! CHANGE - I put the piece on the lathe, and turned the little worms out. They were in where the bark meets the interior wood, with a single borehole elsewhere. They're gone now, hehe. Mike

[Steve Mawson]

Growing up in Illinois with hedge rows all around, these beetles are very common on hedge. Even when we used hedge for fence post you would see a lot of dust on the hedge. Mostly going to stay close to the bark as I recall. Have some hedge in my garage now that was harvested in June but no beetles yet. They usually leave when the wood gets dry. Not sure how to control but would not use anything too toxic.

[curtis rosche]

i have a bunch of maple that is getting filled with worms. they have left a 2 inch deep 4 inch round pile at the base of one of my 16 inch long logs. i took some of that bug killer that is supposed to last a couple months, and kill anything that crosses the line, kinda like what a bug guy sprays in your home, i sprayed the log, then sprayed a ring about 1 ft thick around each one. i fugre that the worms close to the outside might die, but the rest are just giving it some character, but the rings around it makes it so that when they finally come out that they cant start in on the house