Wood Boring Insects in my Hickory Chunks

[fzxdoc]

I just discovered that my hickory chunks stored in their bag are lighter than usual and found a fine powder on my hands and in the bag. The holes in some of the chunks are teensy--about the size of a gnat's navel. Well, maybe a bit bigger than that but not much.

I store the bags of chunks and chips next to my box of Fruitawood chunks in the garage.

The hickory chunks are the only wood affected, from what I can tell.

Should I toss them, quarantine them, continue to use them, or what?

Never had this problem before.

Kathryn

[ComfortablyNumb]

I would use them. I'd also keep them in a container that won't allow insect migration. Any idea of what they are? Termites could present a larger problem than just to your smoking wood.

[fzxdoc]

Not sure the type. But the sawdust is very powdery, not fine sawdust like termites leave, as I recall. I haven't seen termite infestation since I was a kid so I'm relying on faulty memory circuits. We have Terminix to our house every calendar quarter, so if they spotted termite activity, they would have told us.

K.

[johnsteen]

My neighbor got his house tented for powder beetles. Cost him $10000.
A few weeks later I bought two wood and wicker chairs from Pier One for the outdoor area. They had the
same dust coming out of them that he had from his infestation. I did not have mine tested and fought to get
them replaced which they did.
The second set of chairs had the same issue.
I read for treatment for powder beetles and it was recommended high heat or cold. I found a wholesale frozen food
company here that let me put the chairs in their 0 degree freezer over the weekend and no more saw dust came out.
I would recommend burning the offending wood as soon as possible as they are very prone to spreading.

[scottranda]

Umm. Wow.

[grantgallagher]

i am really disturbed a food company let you put bug infested chairs in their freezer. really disturbed.

[HawkerXP]

Yowzer.

[fzxdoc]

Yikes. Will burning all the chunks spread the infestation in any way?

K.

[au4stree]

No, it will not spread the insects. In the forestry world, the recommendation is to keep wood local, especially firewood. For example, a best practice is not buying firewood across county lines. That is the best way for critters to spread. Additionally, southern pines beetle for example, one of the most effective controls is prescribed burning.

https://www.dontmovefirewood.org/map/

[Bkhuna]

Maybe you could use the chunks to build a nice fire for cooking instead of using charcoal. Use them up faster that way.

[NapMaster]

Burning them is your best treatment for the little buggers. They will not harm your cook. You might want to cold treat them if you use your chunks slowly. Otherwise, you will slowly end up with a bag/bucket of dust.

[RonB]

It sounds like Powder Post Beetles are your culprits. I would get a 5 gal plastic bucket with a lid and keep the wood in there until used up. The beetles are so small they will have no effect on your cooks.

As a side note, I have been told that when the fire in your fireplace crackles, it's actually bugs or beetles exploding as they expand in the hot fire. How's that for romantic...

[fzxdoc]

Could still be due to rapidly expanding gas coming from exploding bug bodies, ComfortablyNumb.

K.

[CaptainMike]

OMG fzxdoc I'm using that one on the littles the next time we're on a camp out!

[fzxdoc]

It's a lot of fun scaring the littles now and then, CaptainMike. Good idea.

Kathryn

[smokin fool]

Some excellent points here, agreed a Rubbermaid style tote to store your wood chunks and then incinerate the little creeps.
We have the same problem in my area with an imported Asian Elm beetle, the reason I only use packaged wood chips.

[pkadare]

You mean the Asian Long-Horned Beetle? Elm beetles wouldn't be much of a problem since nearly all elm trees in Ontario were killed years ago due to Dutch Elm Disease. :-(

[smokin fool]

Your right....well, at least I got Asian and beetle right....
I still hope the is a stand of Elm somewhere in the province that got missed by that blight.

[IowaGirl]

Powder post beetles are a problem in green wood, but if the wood is dried and then kept dry, they don't survive. That's why kiln dried wood doesn't usually have beetles, but green wood allowed to dry naturally can have this problem.

My house was originally a timber framed barn built in 1916. It took several years of living in the house for the beetles to die out in the timber frame, but they eventually did as the wood in the barn structure dried out.

Burning the wood will definitely destroy the beetles, larvae, and eggs. For the wood you don't (yet) want to burn, you could bake the wood in your gasser. If we're talking chips or smaller chunks, a couple of hours at 250-300 F would work well to dry the wood and heat it through its core to kill the beetles. Let cool and store in a closed container to prevent reinfestation if the wood isn't sufficiently dry.

[Steve R.]

I think anytime we are burning hickory wood, we're burning several bugs along with it. I have a stack of hickory I use in my stick burner, and I get the little piles of sawdust. The bugs love the hickory wood as much as we do! For chunks, it should be easy to just contain them in a plastic bucket with a lid. If you're still concerned, maybe there is a way to "kiln dry" them by heating them up before storing them in the plastic container.

Ok, nevermind. IowaGirl had the same idea and said it much better.

[Oak Smoke]

I had the same concerns a few years ago with a trailer load of mesquite. We loaded it late one evening, by the next morning there was dust everywhere. I decided I didn't want anything near my home that would eat wood. I was already writing a check every year to keep termites at bay. I didn't even unload it. I gave it to a friend with a large stick burner. He was glad to get it even with bugs.

[badf00d]

I had a cord of wood ruined by some sort of insects, not sure what they were. Incredible amounts of powder all over the wood and on the ground, and the holes looked like a drill bit was used. For the next cord of wood I put in the rack, I sprayed Taurus SC around the base of the rack (none on the wood) and dusted with food-grade diatomaceous earth. None of this sits in my garage, and there are plenty of live trees around to continue drawing bugs into the area. So far, they've been kept well in check, and neither product costs much. Very easy to apply.

[Oak Smoke]

My pool filter uses DE. What effect does it have on insects?

[badf00d]

Pool filter DE (heated to essentially become like bits of glass) is not the same as food-grade, and is not safe to breathe. Food-grade, however, can be used as a food supplement, and is safe for humans and pets and doesn't even hurt our skin. However, for insects it's a nightmare. It breaks down their exoskeleton like a bunch of razor blades. Nice non-toxic bug killer that you can use indoors or around little animals and kids, a vegetable garden, or a wood pile.

[fzxdoc]

Thank you all for your suggestions. Here's what I did:

First I called Terminix. They said just toss the bag in the trash. I said, "Well, wouldn't that possibly spread an infestation to somewhere else?" They said that no one would know; that everybody dumps stuff; etc. etc. etc. True we live in a heavily forested area so there are probably more wood boring bugs out there than in that little bag.

What I ended up doing: I sprayed insect repellent into the bag of hickory (there was only about 1/2 bag left) sealed tightly, and put inside a garbage bag for disposal pickup on Thursday.

Then I went through my other wood chunks, examined each piece carefully, and bagged each wood type in separate 2-gallon storage bags. I only found two pieces of pecan that had the little holes which I sprayed and discarded.

I threw out all my wood chips since I never use them. Gosh I had a lot of bags of those. Didn't even look for fine powdered sawdust. Just sprayed the heck out of them with the insect repellent, sealed them tightly in their own bags and tossed them in the garbage bag.

My next move is to take the bagged chunks that I kept and put each bag into the freezer for a few days.

I just couldn't bake them on my gasser (great idea, IowaGirl , especially for those less squeamish than me, which should be just about everyone ) or burn them in my WSCGC, PBC, or Weber 22" kettle. The notion of bug bodies popping open in the fire or sweating bugs creeping out into my gasser was too much for my (albeit overactive) imagination.

I figured bagging and freezing would be a good preventative measure, since none of the dried wood that I kept showed any evidence of buggy habitation. Thanks for that suggestion, johnsteen . It's the one least likely to give me the creeps.

Kathryn

[ComfortablyNumb]

Here's what you should have done. Put them in a plastic bag, seal up well. Pack into a box, put my address on the box and post. I'd have sent a cheque for postage and killed the bugs for you in my KBQ. ;-)

[fzxdoc]

But what if the post office asked me if there was anything hazardous in the package, ComfortablyNumb ? Those critters were hazardous to my house for sure!

I really don't want anything that chews on wood in my zip code, much less my garage.

Kathryn

[johnmcq4]

My mother used to make wreaths and candle holders out of pine cones and nuts. They all took a trip thru the oven after gathering to kill the bugs.
My issue in Indiana is with Emerald Ash Borer and ants. Now I'll need to check for these beetles. Most of that wood is headed for the wood stove so I'm not concerned unless they start eating my house.

[ColonialDawg]

Those little critters are the secret to my amazing World Championship brisket.

Those crackles and pops are flavor bombs.

[Steve R.]

You mean that's not actually coarse ground pepper you use in the rub?

[Thunder77]

Kathryn, exactly how big is a gnat's navel? And how do you know the size?

[Donw]

She is a physicist and has an electron microscope!🙂

[bbqLuv]

didn't know gnats have navels until now. learned something new today.

[THE Humble Texan]

Spread them out on your grill at about 125-140 degrees till they heat through. The bugs should die by about 120.