Jun 30, 2012 – Wood They Live In Furniture?
QUESTION:
What is the best treatment for wooden furniture when infested with pine bark beetles or plain bark beetles?
ANSWER:
Bark beetles compose a large group of tree-infesting beetles formerly in the family Scolytidae, but now lumped into the weevils in the family Curculionidae. These beetles are responsible for tremendous loss of forest trees such as pines and often hardwood trees as well. The larvae feed within the living tissues under the bark, the cambium layer, and eventually girdle the tree and kill it. Several species are referred to as Ambrosia Beetles, and these oddballs have almost a social existence in their galleries in the wood. The female digs a chamber and creates a growth of fungus within that chamber, and it is this fungus that the larvae feed on. Her activities in creating galleries causes the walls of the galleries to become stained a darker color, thus the name "ambrosia". Even the adult beetles feed on this fungus they introduce and in essence they farm the fungus for their needs. Unfortunately the fungus then infects the tree.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
What is the best treatment for wooden furniture when infested with pine bark beetles or plain bark beetles?
ANSWER:
Bark beetles compose a large group of tree-infesting beetles formerly in the family Scolytidae, but now lumped into the weevils in the family Curculionidae. These beetles are responsible for tremendous loss of forest trees such as pines and often hardwood trees as well. The larvae feed within the living tissues under the bark, the cambium layer, and eventually girdle the tree and kill it. Several species are referred to as Ambrosia Beetles, and these oddballs have almost a social existence in their galleries in the wood. The female digs a chamber and creates a growth of fungus within that chamber, and it is this fungus that the larvae feed on. Her activities in creating galleries causes the walls of the galleries to become stained a darker color, thus the name "ambrosia". Even the adult beetles feed on this fungus they introduce and in essence they farm the fungus for their needs. Unfortunately the fungus then infects the tree.
Since fungi require moisture to live and grow they cannot do so in dry wood, and thus bark beetles rarely continue to live in finished wood products or within structural wood. Dry furniture would be a terribly hostile environment for bark beetles, so we might have one of two circumstances going on here. If you do have an active infestation of wood eating beetles in this furniture it will likely be powderpost or Anobiid beetles - deathwatch, furniture, Lyctus, etc. If what you are seeing is just evidence that was caused by bark beetles this would be surface evidence such as meandering galleries or holes that were cut across and exposed during the milling process. This is a common thing to see on milled lumber where a formerly infested tree was then cut and milled, exposing that old beetle activity.
If this surface evidence is what you see then it pretty much can be ignored, and it would have to have been there when the furniture was made and purchased. Dry furniture is not going to support bark beetles. If what you see is new holes appearing in the wood then these would be from new adult beetles emerging, and these would be Anobiids or Lyctus, and now there is a problem. These beetles commonly re-infest the wood they grew up in, with generation after generation feeding on the wood, and they do need to be eliminated.
Surface applications of insecticides to finished wood products are usually ineffective, and applying them to a nice finish is also usually unacceptable to the owner of that furniture. The only material that may actually penetrate to kill the beetle larvae feeding within the wood is Bora-Care, and this cannot be applied to finished wood surfaces. It is useful only on unfinished bare wood. Other insecticides applied to the surface will rest there and degrade within a few weeks, and their usefulness is only to intercept emerging adult beetles or adult females that attempt to lay eggs back on that wood when a fresh residual is still present.
Fumigation by placing the furniture under a tarp or within a chamber is quick and the most effective, but it may not be readily available to you and can be expensive. Heating would also work but the furniture still would have to be retained within some heat chamber for a day or two to ensure the interior of the wood heated sufficiently to kill any larvae or eggs. So, with all of this, I suggest verifying that an existing infestation is actually there and what kind of beetles they are, and this will help you decide what action can be taken.
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