Cedar Borers.

[gunnyr]

I've got an old Crossman pump .22, pump, and I can pour about 15 to 20 #8 shot down the barrel and shoot carpenter bees. Works great as long as you keep the muzzle above level.

One day my son, about eleven at the time, asked if I was a good enough shot to shoot one out of the air. I said sure, do it all the time. I went and got the pellet gun, loaded it up with shot and blasted one out of the air at about 15' ft. I reloaded without letting him see how and blasted another. He ran back in the house and told the wife that I was outside shooting bumble bees out of the air on the wing. It was several days before I told them how I was doing it.

If they didn't cost so darn much, I would like to have one of the break-barrel airguns that is designed to shoot the refillable shot cartridge.

Gunny , I too have an experience like this. I was in ITR at Camp Pendelton in 1970 , we had a M16 demonstration about point shooting by a Master Sgt, Quite rememberable. Years latter I ran across
him at Coranado in the Staff Club , he was introduced to me by the Marine I was with, he served with him before. I have got to admit to trying the technique at times , maybe 1 time out of 100 being successful.
During the course of evening the subject came up. he asked me if I had tried it , I told him as stated above,
he just smiled bought me a beer and told me the secret, the rounds were loaded with shot. He smiled and told me not to give up. All I could say was thank you SGT MAJ and I bought a round of drinks. I have got to admit that i use a 22 rifle loaded with shot for demonstrations at Hunter Education classes My eye sight isn't what it once was.
gunnyr

 

[Brazos John]

I would get on it pretty soon to minimize bug damage to your poles and to get rid of those little varmints and keep them from spreading.

Thanks, Bob, and everybody,
That's a lot of new info, and I really appreciate it!
Sounds like I need to get after it tomorrow (should have been yesterday!).

 

[Oldbear63]

I am an entomologist.
I can think of several ways to fix your problem:
Wrap the poles in air-tight plastic bags and put in a No Pest Strip (Hot Shot). Leave it in place for at least a week.
Treat the poles with a borate solution, Boracare or Timbore, but you will have to saturate them completely to get the borates into all of the wood.
Heat treat the wood up to at least 140 °F for several hours. Nothing survives past about 110°F, but you need to get all parts up to that to work. A hair dryer might work, or leaving black plastic bags in the sun for a while should do it. Wood treated at 200°F+ tends to be more stable and more resistant to borers.
Strip the wood and soak it in any commercial pesticide, but you need to get the pesticide all through the wood.
The holes you see might be exit holes and there might be borers in the wood that don't have holes (depends on the species).
I wouldn't trust WD-40, though some pest control companies use orange oil.
Some treatments like creosote require pressure to get the oils into all of the wood. Applying it to the surface might not reach the core.

 

[flconch53]

My favorite pastime in the spring is sitting on my patio with a badminton racket waiting for the carpenter bees.

Just a load of black powder in the smooth bore you can wing shoot them out to about 6 feet.

 

[earlwb]

The first year I bought the rackets I swatted 53 male bees which keep the females from mating, thus no holes in my lumber.

I have fun using one of those Bug-A-Salt air guns they sell. Shot quite a few flying bugs with it. It is close to being like skeet shooting with a shotgun.

 

[Tenring]

Spray them down with Clorox, it killed some boring mites in a teak swimming boat platform.

 

[flntlokr]

I wonder if painting the bark with clear poly would deter them.

It may stop new attacks, but the ones inside will not be affected; only something that will penetrate the wood deeply can be counted on to kill all of the larvae and adults.. In my area, we had a mill owner who kiln dried poles for a few people who wanted to travel down to the US for rendezvous; he supplied a letter certifying what was done, and stamped each pole as treated. Failing that, the best way to kill them is to get the internal temperature above 12 degrees for a few hours, then clear stain or oil finish. On the job, we used black plastic tarp wraps and place in the sun to do the job. If you keep the poles from soaking up water and staying damp, you should be able to protect them from re-attack. The bugs need some moisture to get started, but once the larvae start to feed, they can survive for years until they finish their development. Another thought; were your poles freshly cut, i.e. in the sme year you saw the boring dust? If so, you may not have powder post beetles but instead have ambrosia beetles (shot hole borers). If they are ambrosias, they only have a 1 year life cycle and only attack fresh material, so they will be gone within a year, and you don't have to do anything about them.

 

[Brazos John]

Another thought; were your poles freshly cut, i.e. in the same year you saw the boring dust?

I bought them from a cedar yard, and they were laying piled on the ground. They don't look all grey like old fence posts, so maybe they're not too old.
I'll chase some of the holes, and see how deep they go.
I have so many trees in the yard that I can't find a place that gets more than 30 minutes of sun, so I'm not sure if the black plastic wrap would kill them all.

 

[Caterpillar Hunter]

Listen to what Notchy Bob and Shorthanded already stated. Good advice. Always peel bark from wood immediately to avoid beetle infestation. I'd go ahead and use your poles--after you've stripped the bark off, which could be a challenge now.

 

[Rifleman1776]

If you don't remove the bark they will be back

Amen, Bro.

 

[Brazos John]

I started peeling bark from the largest pole, and I got a foot peeled in an hour. That's 8 hours per pole. That motivated me to find a cedar yard in Gatesville, only an hour out of the way when we go to Ft. Worth. But that won't be for a couple of weeks yet.

I'll try another pole tomorrow, nothing to lose, but I'll do it in the morning, before it hits 90.

Thanks for all of your ideas and knowledge. I know a lot more about fighting these pests now than I did before. This is always a good source for info!

 

[bud in pa]

Get yourself a hand held belt sander with a 60 grit belt. It's a lot easier then doing it by hand.

 

[Brokennock]

I started peeling bark from the largest pole, and I got a foot peeled in an hour. That's 8 hours per pole. That motivated me to find a cedar yard in Gatesville, only an hour out of the way when we go to Ft. Worth. But that won't be for a couple of weeks yet.

I'll try another pole tomorrow, nothing to lose, but I'll do it in the morning, before it hits 90.

Thanks for all of your ideas and knowledge. I know a lot more about fighting these pests now than I did before. This is always a good source for info!

What are you using? A good drawknife should work pretty quickly.

 

[Brazos John]

I had a chisel, a metal putty knife, and a hammer. And some pliers. I got the bark started at the big end just fine, but then it runs out, and I have trouble picking up the bark again. And that under-bark layer is even harder to get going. Lots of knots from branches, too.
I'll try a different pole tomorrow.
And, sadly, I don't have a drawknife, so I'm using what I have.

 

[appalichian hunter]

Got a old lawn mower blade, take a grinder or belt sander put a beveled edge along the blade length,duct tape the ends to make hand holds. Instant draw knife good enough to de-bark a few cedar poles, the under layer is the cadium once the heavy bark is off let it dry a few days and scrape that off also. Once you have the bark off hang the poles and put some kind of weight on the free end a concrete block works well, let them hang until completly dry the poles will take a set and not bow. Thats how I have done them in the past, being cedar they will last forever with a bit of care.

 

[Notchy Bob]

An angle grinder with a coarse abrasive disk on it should also cut through it pretty quickly. I put off buying one of those way too long. They don't have to cost all that much... I think I paid $50-$60 for one from Lowe's... But it sure is handy for certain stock-removal jobs as well as for sharpening mower blades and such. Disks are easy to swap out, so you can put on coarse, medium, or fine abrasives for wood or metal.

Those poles must have been winter-cut. Wood cut at that time of year typically seasons better, and is less likely to crack than spring or summer-cut wood. The bark tends to be more adherent, though, which seems to be the case here.

I was just reading something last night about Indians in northwestern Montana cutting tipi poles. I don't think it was feasible for them to cut poles in the wintertime, but they were very particular about selecting, cutting, peeling, and seasoning their lodge poles. This was in Volume 2 of Granville Stuart's "Forty Years on the Frontier."

Good luck with your project, John. Stick with it, and it'll be done before you know it. Those cedar poles will last a long time with reasonable care, and cedar has a very good strength-to-weight ratio.

Notchy Bob

 

[smo]

FYI…

I’ve had these cedar pole for approximately 3 years now…
The borers started on it last year..

Here’s a couple pics…

My plan is too strip the remaining bark and treat with Bifen XTS..

If that doesn’t kill them, then I’ll treat (spray) them with Permethrin…

The best way I’ve found too remove the bark so far is a hand wire brush….

I plan on singeing the fuzzy bark left behind with a propane torch prior too treatment.
I hope you don’t have many too do….

Thanks for the reminder!
Let the fun begin!

 

[Notchy Bob]

That wire brush is a good idea, @smo . I'll bet a wire wheel on an electric drill or a coarse abrasive disc on an angle grinder would do the job, too.

I'm not familiar with Bifen. I'll need to look that one up.

There is a wealth of information on this forum, on a wide variety of topics...

Notchy Bob

 

[smo]

Bob, the reason I chose the hand wire brush was it was handy and doesn’t bite into the wood as bad as the power tool..

Bifen , I bought at the local CoOp ..
supposedly kills wood boring insects…
We’ll see….

Works great on ticks too..

A Freind of mine done some cedar teepee poles… He stripped them when they were fresh cut ..
He said they were easier and only a straight screwdriver was needed..

 

[Notchy Bob]

Bob, the reason I chose the hand wire brush was it was handy and doesn’t bite into the wood as bad as the power tool..

I get it, @smo . Hand tools get the job done. Besides that, I can tell you from experience that if you are as clumsy as I am, power tools can make a simple project head south in a hurry.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob