Bug problem

[Ed in Tampa]

First make sure your wood is far from your house and any building you want. Then stack the wood well off the ground. Sticker it so you can get between the logs/boards. Then get the most powerful insecticide you can find and spray the pile every 6 months if covered or every month if not.

Wrapping the wood pile in black plastic and out in the sun will heat up the wood enough to kill any bug.

If the wood touchs the ground that is enough for a host of different insects to survive.

I have a friend in the pest control business and he supplies me with strong chemicals. But honestly having fought and suffering a lot of defeats in the war against bugs in Florida I stop gathering wood. Biggest concern is attracting them to your house. They can find a crack in the concrete and go straight up the wall. Had to redoe a master bath because of it.

Right.now I am fighting carpenter ants. I think I got them finally but not until I fought a heated battle. I used three different insecticides. Each works a different way, each last a different length of time.

One thing I haven't tried and I'm told it is excellent is to make a spray of borax and spray the wood pile. Borax is probably the most effective bug killer because bugs don't build a immunity to it.

That is my $0.02 or was that $0.25 worth?

[JPG]

Boric acid?

[Ed in Tampa]

Forgot to mention make sure your wood is bug free when you get it. You can do all kinds of things to prevent bugs only to infest the whole pile with one log filled with bugs,

Old timers once used kerosene on their wood piles. I fon't know if it kept the bugs way but smell should have done something.

Call you county extension and ask them. I did that once and got 50 long leaf pine seedlings for free and some top notch info from a professor from FSU all by asking a bug question to the county extension agent.

[ERLover]

If you're primarily concerned with blanks for turning, Any wood which is suspect of bug damage, strip some of the outer bark off and inspect for larvae or mature bugs. If you suspect or actually see and signs of bugs, You might want to turn that wood as soon as possible so the bugs or insects don't have enough time to bore deeper into the wood.

Here in MD. we are having real problems with the "two lined chestnut beetle", and the Ash bore beetle in our Red Oaks.

Mike

Ash Borer beetle now hitting red oaks???

Whoops, my mistake! Not the ash borer beetle, The goldspotted oak borer.

Mike

Another Species decimated

[Ed in Tampa]

Boric acid?

I think it is Borax. Reading Wikipedia they say borax is the salt of boric acid so I guess you are right it makes boric acid.

We use borax powder throughout the house. If you pin down a professional exterminator you can get them to admit borax is almost a perfect insecticide for insect that have exoskeletons.
They apparently have oil on the their shells that keep them from dehydrating. Borax powder dries up the oil and they dry up. They also carry it back to nest and the nest will dry up.

Safe as it isn't poison. County agri extension agent gave me a recipe. Karo sryup mixed with borax will kill most ants. Latest recipe they said use honey, crushed dog food and borax. Make a rather dry paste and put on aluminum foil cups near where you see the bugs.

Dust back of your kitchen cabinets with borax. After dust settles it is food safe.

The white powder the pros put around in the house is borax. I will never tell who told me this but he earns his living killing bugs.

[ERLover]

Right on Ed, from Wikipedia.
Insecticidal
Boric acid was first registered in the US as an insecticide in 1948 for control of cockroaches, termites, fire ants, fleas, silverfish, and many other insects. The product is generally considered to be safe to use in household kitchens to control cockroaches and ants.[24] It acts as a stomach poison affecting the insects' metabolism, and the dry powder is abrasive to the insects' exoskeletons.

[JPG]

For exoskeleton bugs - diatomaceous earth(prehistoric teeny tiny shelled bugs). Very fine and abrasive. Gets between plates and causes dehydration.

Also edible - used in flour to 'discourage' bugs.

Also used in cattle feed.

Used for bed bugs.

[swampgator]

Thank you everyone for your input and insight. I had no idea that this question would generate so much discussion. Ed, in Tampa, I have looked around and I am going to investigate all my wood. I found another piece of this persimmon infested with this phenomenon. In the first picture you can see how they drilled through the bark. I kept the bark on hoping to help in reducing the splitting action of drying. You can also see that green latex paint I had put on the ends to slow down the drying process. The stock on the lathe setup was roughed by a roughing chisel and was trimming it down with a skew chisel. This wood turns so smoothly. It is a fruit wood. It is wild/undomesticated persimmon and was hoping to make rolling pins. But, I would not like this in my pie crust.

BTW, after photographing this today, I was looking and little tiny black bugs went scurrying from one hole to another. In one of the holes, I found something staring back at me. It is in the burn pile. I will be purchasing black plastic and stacking my next wood out in the sunny spots off the ground. In the meantime, will start with Borax and see how that does. I may progress from there if that does not render satisfactory results. Thank you again for your help.

Steve, the old swampgator

[BuckeyeDennis]

That bug-infested piece is actually pretty cool-looking. I'd kill the bugs with heat or chemicals, and then use it for something decorative.

It does look a lot like "ambrosia maple". So obviously, what it really needs is a sexy name.

Take that bowl I made for my niece. I proudly proclaimed that it was hand-made of "spalted Ash". My brother was the only person present who suspected that "spalted Ash" translates loosely to "half-rotted Ash" The youngsters and womenfolk, on the other hand, were all duly impressed.

As for names, "perforated persimmon" is technically accurate, but just doesn't have the right vibe. We need our very best right-brained members to get on the case. db5, are your ears on?

[reible]

Please keep in mind if you do use any chemicals that it is likely that they will end up with you breathing them in at some point. Sawing, sanding, and clean up puts dust in the air and what ever you sow so shall you reap.

Borax is not a big deal but some of the other things that kill bugs are also not so good for you. This is one of those pet peeves of mine about pallet wood. I never use it. Back in the 70's our wood working club and this guy come in and talk about the subject. Things like PCB's never go away by them selves and who knows where the pallet has been. Ever been at the loading docks, disgusting would be putting it mildly. To make it worse they do in some cases put preservatives to prevent decay and things to keep the bugs away........ and that is on purpose.

Just saying.

Ed