Bark beetles are small insects that can cause big trouble. These beetles up to nine millimeters in size, gathered in colonies, are capable of turning wooden buildings, floors in the house and furniture into dust.
How to stop pests and how to treat wood against bark beetles? The best remedy, of course, is prevention. But if the insects are already infested in the tree, they can be removed using several methods, which we will discuss in the article.
How dangerous is the bark beetle?
Up to 700 thousand bark beetles are found in nature. One of the most dangerous representatives of this family is the typograph bark beetle. He leaves a system of passages in the wood, similar to a typographic plateau. The beetle is black-brown in color, measuring from 3.5 to 5.5 mm with transverse stripes on the back. At the end of the back there is a wheelbarrow - a recess into which he puts wood dust and throws it out of the move. The pointed cephalothorax improves its movement along the canal. The hairs covering the body and paws help clear passages.
Bark beetle typographer
As soon as spring comes, the male looks for a place to attract females. It gnaws a hole in the tree and prepares a mating chamber. The pheromones it secretes attract 2 females. Females begin to make vertical passages in which they lay eggs. One female can lay up to 80 eggs. The eggs hatch into yellow or colorless larvae that feed on the fibrous part of the bark. One larva can eat up to 10g of wood per day.
The larvae move along the canal with the help of calluses located on the stomach, gnawing out more and more new passages. Moving along them, the larva grows and at the edge of the passage turns into a pupa. An adult insect emerges from the pupa. The life cycle of bark beetles is 2 months. They overwinter under the leaves, and next spring everything starts all over again.
Printer's larva
The second most dangerous beetle is the shashel (furniture grinder). They are similar in terms of damage.
Shashel
Bark beetles cause great damage to coniferous trees. They settle not only in pine, but also in fir and spruce, feeding on bark and bast. Pests choose those trees that have thick bast. This is the fibrous tissue of a tree, located on the back of the bark. It has a lot of nutrients.
Bark beetles do not settle in young spruce trees because they protect themselves by secreting resin. The resin closes the entrance hole, and the bark beetles die inside the tree. Therefore, beetles choose coniferous trees over 60 years old, which produce small amounts of resin.
Bark beetles also occupy diseased and weakened trees and freshly cut logs. Wooden buildings are often attacked by insects: houses, bathhouses, sheds, outbuildings. Bark beetles turn wood into dust. They often damage beams and load-bearing floors, which can collapse and cause injury to a person.
Bark beetles damage trees in a summer cottage. Having spoiled one tree, they fly to another. There is a danger of destroying the entire garden. They also gnaw passages in furniture, spoiling its appearance. Typograph bark beetles carry fungal spores that contribute to the growth of mold.
Traces of presence on the apple tree
Biological methods of killing beetles
Remedies for bark beetles of biological origin are a pheromone trap in which a bait soaked in the product is installed in a dispenser. It is effective only for large representatives of the beetle in the warm summer period. Baits need to be changed periodically, and the dispensary should be cleaned of insects. This is a completely safe and harmless way to check the number of bark beetles in your area.
Please note that when placing a dispenser inside a building, there is a risk of attracting bark beetles from outside, since the range of action of the bait is more than 7 km. Its use is not recommended in small summer cottages, where they can do more harm than good, attracting not only beetles already living in the walls, but also individuals from all over the area.
Prevention of bark beetles
To prevent pests from appearing in your home, preventive measures should be taken.
- Twice a year inspect wooden furniture, especially its lower part. If traces of beetles are visible in it, then treat the furniture with insecticides.
- Building materials must be carefully checked for holes before building a house.
- It is difficult to detect the presence of beetles on the bark; it is necessary to study the appearance of the ends to see if there are burrow systems on them.
- The wood must be dry. Wet wood contains tree sap that attracts pests.
- In a wooden house, high humidity should be avoided to prevent the appearance of rot and mold.
Inspection of wooden building structures before purchase
Any seller of building materials, when advertising their products, assures the buyer of their quality and compliance with standards. Here it is necessary to adhere to the principle - trust, but verify. This is especially true for slabs with bark residues. Signs of lumber infestation by pests:
- easily peelable bark with a layer of dust underneath;
- poor drying, checked by applying a drop of iodine to a cut of the board;
- small holes on the surface of boards or beams;
- many small cracks, a potential shelter for woodworms;
- the remains of shallow winding paths on the surface of lumber or their traces on cuts.
It is not recommended to purchase such material even for installing fences around the house. For walls and beams, buy well-dried and antiseptic-treated materials.
Elimination before construction
Let's look at how to get rid of bark beetle in a tree using the following insect control products.
Traces of insects in lumber
If you bought damaged building material, then it should be treated with Anti-Bug and Wood Healer chemicals before use. Treatment with insecticides is carried out 3 times with a break of 7 days.
May be useful: Exterior wood paint
To prevent the appearance of mold, treat the wood with protective agents: varnish, oil, wax, antiseptic. If sick and weakened trees are found on a summer cottage, they are cut down and burned.
The best beetle repellents for wood
Chemical control options are considered the best and most effective today. They help not only to destroy adult bark beetles, but also help to completely get rid of the larvae. In this case, large areas can be quickly treated and there is no need to dismantle the existing frame. At the point of sale, experienced specialists will advise the necessary and effective remedy. They differ in the duration of action. The period can be 2-4 weeks, more than a month, and the most expensive ones will save you from these problems for 30 years.
Bark beetles in a wooden house, how to get rid of them
If bark beetles appear in the house, then folk, electromagnetic, mechanical and chemical means of control should be used in combination. Only in this case will the question of how to destroy the bark beetle and prevent its reappearance be successfully resolved.
Fumigation with phosphine gas is a proven way to kill beetles.
The beetles are deep inside the wood, making them difficult to remove. An effective means of getting rid of bark beetles is phosphine gas, which penetrates deep into the pores of the tree and kills adults and larvae.
Fumigation with phosphine gas should only be carried out by specialists, because the explosive agent can cause harm to the human body. When carrying out work, professionals wear protective clothing and gas masks.
Phosphine is released from tablets placed in metal cans. They contain aluminum phosphide or magnesium phosphide. The jar is opened only at the beginning of fumigation. The tablets, when combined with moisture from the air, release phosphine.
Fumigation
Before fumigation, it is important to perform a number of actions:
- remove food from the refrigerator, take out the computer, TV and phones. Other household appliances can be left;
- remove plants and pets from the house;
- residents should also leave the house;
- neighbors must be warned about the operation being performed;
- the heating is turned off, the house is de-energized;
- For complete sealing, a special dome is put on it. You cannot enter the house for a week.
After a week, specialists degass the premises. After checking the gas concentration in the air with measuring instruments, the service removes decomposition products.
Special chemicals
When deciding how to get rid of bark beetles, you should pay attention to chemicals:
- "Bi-58". It affects the gastrointestinal system of the insect. Active ingredient: dimethoate;
- "Confidor Extra". The product is diluted according to the instructions. Destroys all types of beetles and their offspring;
- "Clipper". The active substance bifethrin penetrates deep into the wood of trees and building materials, destroying bark beetles and their larvae;
- "Anti-bug." With its help you can poison woodworms, watchmakers, bark beetles and other beetles. Prevents the formation of fungus and mold.
Industrial insecticides for bark beetle control
Industrial insecticides are used only when the affected area is large. It is better to invite specialists to exterminate pests. If you decide to remove insects yourself, then use a protective suit, goggles, a respirator, and gloves. After treatment, you should definitely take a shower.
May be interesting: What is the best way to sheathe the outside of a wooden house?
Pheromone traps
Pheromone traps are plastic flasks with a plate impregnated with pheromones that attract adult individuals. Arriving at the trap, they hit the partition, roll inside it and cannot get out.
Traps do not affect eggs and larvae. Pheromone traps also have a drawback: the smell of alluring pheromones attracts the attention of beetles from all over the surrounding area. Their number in the house may increase.
Traditional methods
To get rid of bark beetle in the house, treat the holes with the following folk remedies:
- solution of turpentine and kerosene (3:1);
- a mixture of paraffin, rosin and vegetable oil, which must be boiled over low heat and cooled;
- composition of naphthalene, tar and turpentine. The product will kill not only the adult, but the eggs and larvae. The solution is administered with a spray bottle or syringe;
- Vaseline oil. It is dripped into the holes with a pipette;
- sealant. They clog the holes.
Professional products
Professionals destroy bark beetles using the following means:
- stem injections. With the help of sap flow, the poison rises up to the crown of trees and kills pests;
- cold and hot fog generators. Insecticides get into all the crevices of the tree bark and kill insects on the surface. Hot fog affects insects not only with poison, but also with high temperature;
- fumigation with phosphine gas. Magtoxin tablets and Degesh tapes are used for fumigation.
Example of stem injections in trees
Microwave method of controlling bark beetles
High-frequency radiation is also an effective method of killing pests. The microwave installation is directed to the affected area, and the beetles die. The method has no effect on wood. The emitter heats the wood to a temperature of 60 degrees, due to which pests are destroyed.
Microwave oven outdoors against pests
Mechanical method of pest control
To solve the problem of how to get rid of bark beetles in a wooden house, you can use not only chemical, folk, electromagnetic methods of exterminating insects, but also a mechanical method. It is used at the initial stage of damage to the house. If beetle-infested areas appear in a wooden structure, they should be cut out and burned, and new parts should be put in their place, which are glued or fixed with fasteners. To prevent affected sawdust and shavings from getting into healthy areas, plastic film is secured around the holes and only hand tools are used.
The first signs of how to recognize enemy penetration
In order to begin the fight against the parasite, you first need to detect it. Due to its small size, it is quite difficult to recognize the insect, so you need to look for traces of its activity:
- The first thing that catches your eye is the presence of so-called drill flour on the floor, in close proximity to the baseboards. It is the result of the life activity of beetles. Neatly folded into small piles or distributed in the form of a plaque on the floor and walls, it indicates that a pest has entered your home. You should look around carefully - sometimes you can immediately detect the moves made;
- The appearance of bark beetle in trees that grow in the yard, from where it can easily migrate into the house, is also dangerous;
- listen to the noise. During the day, the beetles are quiet, but after sunset you can clearly see them sharpening wood.
Getting rid of bark beetles can be a difficult task. Sometimes even proven comprehensive methods may be powerless, so the best option would be prevention.
How to chop wood, my experience and advice
In many films where village life is touched upon, they show how the main character splits firewood and how cleverly he manages to deal with small, thin logs in one or two minutes, and even in the summer, at the height of field work, as if at this time, apart from chopping there is no other work for firewood.
Have you noticed? Many villagers quietly chuckle at this fact, but skip “Cinema, there is cinema!”, Let’s leave this fact to the conscience of the filmmakers, our conversation is about something else.
We spent the whole summer fussing and fussing, but only remembered about collecting firewood towards the end of the summer. There was no previously prepared firewood; buying chopped firewood is too expensive and beyond the means of a simple pensioner, so I had to order it urgently.
They brought us firewood in the fall, in September, so we had to quickly split it so that the logs would have at least some time to dry out before winter. The firewood turned out to be filled to capacity with bark beetle larvae; each log contained two or three fat, well-fed larvae.
Experts recommend destroying the bark beetle larvae and burning their habitats, which is what we did. The larvae were destroyed in the stomachs of our chickens, who were satisfied with such a delicacy, and the firewood would burn in the firebox of our stove over the winter.
I have experience in chopping wood, I have been chopping wood for several years now, and a lot has been told and shown on the Internet and YouTube about methods of chopping wood and the tools needed for this. I just have to add something from my own life experience that may be useful to someone in working with an ax.
Electromagnetic radiation from pests
If you don’t know how to deal with bark beetle, use the electromagnetic method. Special devices that generate electromagnetic microwave waves can kill larvae, eggs and the beetles themselves. The disadvantage of this method is that it is necessary to know exactly the habitat of pests and their movements and carefully monitor the temperature state of the surface to prevent charring. In addition, before use, the wooden parts of the structure are dismantled and all metal parts are removed.
Safety precautions when chopping wood
Working with an ax, like any other work, requires care and caution. To prevent the ax from flying off the ax handle, the day before chopping wood, lower it into a container of water, the ax handle will swell, and the ax will sit firmly on it.
While working, spread your legs wide: this is both comfortable and will protect you from accidental mistakes. Make sure that there are no people nearby, especially children, since when cutting firewood can fly quite far in different directions.
To split firewood you also need your own cunning, dexterity and skill, it is not as simple as it seems, you took a log, put it down, baled it with an ax and the logs scattered in different directions.
No, not all lumps you come across are even, smooth and fly apart from the first blow, you need to know how to place each one, where to hit it, sometimes a lump is clumsy, a knotty one pricks easily, but a straight and smooth one just doesn’t work.
Nowadays, more and more often on the Internet and in stores I see all sorts of electromechanical devices for splitting firewood, I have a positive attitude towards new devices for splitting firewood, I am glad for such craftsmen who come up with new wood splitting machines that make the work of the splitter easier, I am happy to use them myself.
Inexperienced or novice woodcutters try to chop wood with an ax and a mallet, using all kinds of wedges and inserts, not knowing that there are several types of cleavers for this that can easily cope with any wood, so I only use mine, which have been successfully tested and proven for a long time.
The trick is that in each block there is a small crack, where you should hit and try to ensure that most of the knots are not on the side where you want to hit, but on the other end of the block.
And one more remark of mine, everyone tries to chop wood as finely as possible. I note that thin logs are only suitable for the barbecue, but they burn quickly in the oven and most of the heat goes into the chimney, so I don’t try to make them smaller.
We fight insect larvae
To destroy the beetle larva located deep in the wood, you need to deliver chemicals to the insect's offspring. This is possible in a number of ways:
- Injection. The drug is drawn into a syringe and injected into the tree under pressure. Fill the holes with liquid oil using different types of oilers. Shut off the air. To do this, the surface is coated with rosin, epoxy, resins and varnishes. Use a steam generator. In this case, there is a double impact - hot steam and toxins in its composition. Warming up the wood using any available methods: microwave generator, infrared lamps.
