This wonderful piece of natural art is the intricate tunnelling pattern of a wood boring beetle.
But other than a little artistic inspiration, what can we learn from this?
Well two things, firstly this was found on a log destined to be moved into someone’s home for their wood burning stove, likely to be stked up neatly a safe distance from the stove and surrounded by wooden furniture, joists and wooden beams…. Wait… Is it really that easy to bring in a pest which can cause structural damage to my home?!!
Secondly, if and when you then might have the misfortune to see these holes appearing in your furniture and timber frames you might be tempted to employ a little DIY pest control, spraying some off the shelf insecticide into the holes seems like a good start. And after you do it you certainly don’t see anything else coming out of that hole!! Job done!!
Or… Is it.
Take a moment to closely, those fascinating feather like tunnels which are what the grub is using to feed and the one single tunnel which the adult insect uses to emerge from? Well… By the time the adult insect exits, that tunnel system will be empty and you will have actually have treated just an empty hole.
‘But surely I’ll get the other grubs in the wood?’
Well, probably not! Look again at those intricate feeding tunnels, notice how few, if any, of them overlap?
So what’s the answer then? Well as with all pest management it is no one single solution… Professionals have access to chemical treatments specifically designed to penetrate deep into the wood, tools for applying heat treatments designed to destroy the grubs in their tunnels, or the knowledge to undertake structural removal and replacement.
However, knowing what to use and when is a talent which takes years of practise and skill, so if you see these holes magically appearing inside your home, always speak to a professional first, because the sooner you act, the easier these #pests will be to manage!