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About six years ago, when I first started planning my house construction, I cut down some Ponderosa pine trees. Not wanting to waste them, I chopped them into 12′ lengths, painted the ends and put them under a roof out of the weather and off the ground. About a year later I removed the bark. Last week, my friend with a homemade mill, turned my logs into lumber. The wood has blue stain and worm holes, not good structurally but might make some nice “antique” cabinets. I’d also like to use a few whole logs as decorative elements in the new house. I started planing the wood yesterday, and to my amazement, found
i live
worms! They’re mostly an inch long, translucent white, with a brownish “tail”. I thought that after six years of drying, any insects would have desiccated or moved out. Short of bringing the wood to a kiln, is there any way I can get rid of the buggers…dead or alive? If I coat everything with polyurethane or a waterbase clear finish will this suffocate and entomb them forever?
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Probably not "worms", but larva or grubs. Considered a delicacy in some parts of the world. Very nutritous, low fat, high protein. You might try over in Fine Cooking as to how best to prepare them if you don't think you would like them raw...
A few discussions on FHB in past have discussed powder post beetles and similar wood eating pests. You might do a search of this site on those and related terms. One of the previous discussions included the following interesting web site which gives a brief description of various wood eating insects:
http://www.cooks-termite.com/wdi.html
*Casey, that was a pretty informative site you posted. Everything you ever wanted to know about most household pests. There was nothing about controlling them however...probably a conflict of interest. From their description, it sounds like most wood boring beetles don't pose a problem in a conditioned, dry house.I'll pass on the grubs and meal worm recipes.David
*David G.The grubs you describe will only survive as long as the moisture content of the wood remains high. As you have found, the moisture in a log dries *very* slowly. I don't know of any way to kill them in the full log. Cutting into lumber will kill them in short order since the moisture level rapidly drops below their requirement.David V.