Bugs in Firewood

[badlander]

Last summer we noticed that we had some sort of burrowing insect invade our firewood.

Whatever it was only bothered the rounds, especially the hickory. Size didn't matter. They burrowed holes not quite a quarter of an inch round in the wood and laid eggs in their burrows. The larvae continued to chew away on the wood the end result being piles and I literally mean piles of ultra fine saw dust in their wake.

I saw the occasional winged insect crawling on the wood and tentatively identified them as a type of burrowing wood wasps. From what I read, they are usually harmless to construction lumber but the mess was impressive as was the loss of firewood volume.

We are starting on next years wood supply all ready (this winter drained our supply) and I'm wondering if anybody else has had this problem and what you did to keep the little varmints out. We did cover some of the wood which cut down on infestation but didn't eliminate it.

We just hate doing all that work and serving it up as a bug buffet.

[JoePa]

Two years ago I had the same thing - only the hickory wood was affected - whatever it was left elongated sawdust all over the wood - burned up all the wood in the stove over that winter - this past year didn't have any probem with the bugs - don't know if it was the hickory that attracted them - maybe - that was the only time that I was ever bother with the bugs and that was the only year I had put up some hickory -

[badlander]

Could it be cyclic? Most of our hardwood that we burn is hickory.

[Alice In TX/MO]

It's not a big problem to have. They don't eat/use much wood. You don't want to spray anything on your wood that you are going to turn into smoke.

Just keep on going.

[badlander]

Originally Posted by Alice In TX/MO

It's not a big problem to have. They don't eat/use much wood. You don't want to spray anything on your wood that you are going to turn into smoke.

Just keep on going.

Thanks Alice. Do you think covering the wood with tarp/plastic would help? What was problematic for us was the amount of dust fine saw dust they produced.

[Wolf mom]

Clear or black plastic (as thick as you can afford) will help bake the critters out & kill the eggs over the summer if you're going to use more hickory.

[badlander]

Wolf mom, 50% of our firewood is hickory. Both smooth and shag bark. The rest is mixed oak and honey locus. Our timber was over grazed by cattle and we have spent the last 5 years letting it recover from the previous owners misuse. A year ago we had a conservation forester come in and look it over. He said that he could tell what had happened to our timber by the number of hickory trees we had in ratio to the red and white oak which are the desirable trees for a forest. Cattle will eat young oak and leave the hickory behind. So we were advised to thin out the hickory and let the oak have a chance to recover.

So we have a lot of hickory to harvest and burn.

[CajunSunshine]

Phew...Some of my firewood is INFESTED with Brown Recluse spiders! Big ones, little ones, teenage ones...must be darned near a gazillion of them.

It has me sick...almost a whole cord of firewood that's a potentially serious disaster waiting to happen. I've never seen so many BRs in one place. (How do I prevent a mega-invasion like this from occurring again?)

Ordinary spiders don't bother me, but I am reluctant to tote a single log into the house because I sure don't need to be dripping a trail of Brown Recluses...

Hmmm...lemons to lemonade? Ok then, maybe it's Hugelkultur time!


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[badlander]

OMG! And I thought we had problems with burrowing wasps!

You can't spray for them, that would affect your wood. Does the winter freeze eliminate them for you?

Your local extension office or farm bureau may have some ideas. I sure would be calling somebody. My brother took a bite that the doctors described as not being 'full venom' and he still almost lost his foot. I think Recluses frighten me more than the copperheads or timber rattlers that we have around us.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Covering it with plastic will help if the original bugs fly in. If they come up from the ground, it won't.

Also, will plastic cause the wood to remain damp and rot?

I don't know the answers!

A quick google search on the spider issue said to use Bois d' Arc balls in the firewood storage area to discourage bugs. Also known as horse apples or hedge apples.

[badlander]

I wonder if they would discourage the wasps also. I have read that if you put them around your house on the exterior, they will discourage mice from entering. All I ever noticed was that the mice really enjoyed eating them.

[NancyWVa]

I had spiders in my wood as well and I used a pump sprayer with vinegar and sprayed the wood pile outside. Seemed to run off all the bugs.

[mountainlaurel]

I would pick up a piece of wood from the pile this winter and find layers of stinkbugs on them. It's disgusting but not as bad as the spiders. I just brushed them off, but some still got in the house. I hate those things and so far, nothing kills them.

[watcher]

I'd try this. I'd put down a thick piece of black plastic wider then the wood pile, put something on that to keep the wood off the ground to allow for air movement then I'd put some clear plastic over it supported so it didn't touch the wood (think a wood pile green house). I think after a week of summer temps and sun the temp would get high enough so even the thickest log in the middle of the pile would reach the point it'd kill anything living in it.

[Chief Cook]

Ya'll gave me the whillys just looking at the wood pile! We have had a few spiders, and the once in a while stink bug, but never anything like that! You can bet I will be giving it a closer look from now on.

[KIT.S]

I make porcelain-faced santa claus figures, and picked up some beautiful slices of cherry wood from an arborist. Put them in the trunk of my '65 mustang and brought them home. Later in the day, I opened the trunk to take them out and stack them, and the termites were crawling all over everything!
I couldn't have that near my house, so I got a bug bomb, threw it into the trunk and shut the hood.
Came back late the next day and there wasn't any smell and no live bugs. My son's friend about had a heart attack that I did that to a mustang, but it was my only transportation and it had to carry whatever I needed.
Kit

[CajunSunshine]

If you live in the shaded area on this map, this post may be useful to you.

Originally Posted by badlander

You can't spray for them, that would affect your wood. Does the winter freeze eliminate them for you?

Where I live now (Arkansas mountains), the cold seems to slow them down, but not eliminate them.

Originally Posted by badlander

Your local extension office or farm bureau may have some ideas. I sure would be calling somebody.

I called everybody I thought might have a clue what to do... They didn't know what to say... other than to spray chemicals. Vinegar runs some of them off, but some of the spiders are already hiding beneath bits of bark, where the vinegar does not reach. If anything, they hunker down and dig in, until the vinegar dries and no longer has an odor. Maybe I'll use the vinegar in a garden sprayer to get the worst of the bugs and spiders off, then spray the escapees with a lethal shot of a lethal chemical bug spray (for spiders).

Originally Posted by badlander

My brother took a bite that the doctors described as not being 'full venom' and he still almost lost his foot. I think Recluses frighten me more than the copperheads or timber rattlers that we have around us.

I'm sorry to hear about your brother, and glad he still has his foot! I've been bitten by all three of the above. I'll take the copperhead any day, over the rest. Timber rattlers are seriously bad juju, f'sure.


I've been Googling my head off, trying to learn as much as I can about Brown Recluse spiders, and what I can do to lessen the chances of future infestations.


Based on my findings (summarized below), here's what I plan to do with my future firewood:

To reduce the amount of available food for the spiders (live and dead bugs): I am going to sprinkle on the ground under the proposed woodpile, a heavy layer of my favorite nontoxic insecticide/repellant: diatomaceous earth (available at nearly every garden center). The beauty of the diatomaceous earth is that the bugs will seek to get away from the stuff, not hang around as an attractant for the BR spiders.

Then, I'll build a rack about 6 inches off the ground, which will help retard decay and insect infestations. I'll sprinkle more diatomaceous earth between each layer of stacked wood. Then top with my usual layer of metal sheeting. As extra insurance, I will toss a liberal amount of osage oranges into the space between the ground and the bottom of the woodpile.

I will definitely wear gloves and bang the wood together to knock off any loose spiders before attempting to bring the wood into the house. Diligent inspections and direct-to-stove wood deposits are in order. (Gone are the days of even a single piece of firewood in the house waiting to be burned!)

(My heavily infested woodpile is a lost cause, and I will not attempt to salvage it for firewood. I hope these measures helps to reduce the number of spiders in my woodpile next year.)



Now, a few words about how cold weather affects BR spiders...

http://www.thebugman.us/2012/11/over...nessee-winter/ has this to say:

"But how cold is too cold for brown recluses?

Short answer: It has to get really cold for a long time.

Basically, if it was 23 degrees or colder for 30 days in a row, the population of brown recluse spiders hiding out in the winter wilderness would not survive. However, even in our chilliest month–with an average low of 28 degrees–that’s not cold enough to fatally freeze all of the fiddle-bearers. And we all know that the weather in Tennessee is often bipolar and probably-couldn’t-commit to being one temperature for an entire month.

Brown recluse spiders often harbor in firewood. If you have firewood at your home, store it at least 20 feet from your house and at least five inches off of the ground. This firewood storage rule-isn’t-only good to keep brown recluses at bay. It also helps to keep termites away from your home."


I learned that Brown Recluse spiders will eat dead as well as live insects. But can live a long, long time without food! (Imagine packed away in a box, somewhere..)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider

“The brown recluse spider is resilient and can tolerate up to six months of extreme drought and scarcity or absence of food. On one occasion it survived in controlled captivity for over five seasons without food.”


Tree bark and stacked firewood are its natural outdoor habitat, but can make itself very much at home in your home:


“Brown recluse spiders build asymmetrical (irregular) webs that frequently include a shelter consisting of disorderly thread. They frequently build their webs in woodpiles and sheds, closets, garages,-plenum spaces, cellars, and other places that are dry and generally undisturbed. When dwelling in human residences they seem to favor cardboard, possibly because it mimics the rotting tree bark which they inhabit naturally. They have also been encountered in shoes, inside dressers, in bed sheets of infrequently used beds, in clothes stacked or piled or left lying on the floor, inside work gloves, behind baseboards and pictures, in toilets, and near sources of warmth when ambient temperatures are lower than usual. Human-recluse contact often occurs when such isolated spaces are disturbed and the spider feels threatened.”


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[Shrek]

We always had a bit of bug and termite residency in our seasoned firewood. We just used gloves bringing it in and let the bugs add to the snap crackle and pop of the fire.

[badlander]

Besides the mysterious wood boring wasps, what grosses me out are the clusters of ladybugs that I find under the wood. I tend to take way too much pleasure in tossing the logs in the fire without knocking off the bugs first.

Cajunsun, do you have access to any pallets? They make a great platform for stacking your wood.

These wasps are surprisingly small for the size of the larvae I have found in the wood, slightly under a half inch long. This is also the first year that we have noticed them and we have been heating with wood for over 5 years now which makes me wonder if they are cyclic. I also wonder if as CS mentioned, just covering the wood with heavy plastic might deter them as we would be effectively raising the temp of the air under the plastic.

What I wonder about doing that is whether or not the wood will continue to age properly without ample air circulation. We usually stack our split wood in the barn. One wall usually equals about 3 cords. As our barn is constructed of Osage Orange posts, metal siding, and green (at the time of construction) oak, we don't worry too much about bugs damaging the wood or structure. The amount of wood damage we had to the hickory through was alarming. We exhausted our wood supply this year due to the harsh winter and there was at least two inches of powder fine saw dust under some of the hickory.

We have been lucky though. While we have had ants, wood boring wasps and lady bugs, we have seen very few spiders and no brown recluses. Only little black guys who are more afraid of us then we are of them.

Oh great, I just jinxed myself. Now we are sure to see them this year.

[Rita]

Here is a spider killer/preventer that I have not actually tried but it is organic: one cup vinegar, 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, 1 teaspoon veg. oil and one teaspoon liquid soap.