House lumberjack - a barbel threatening your home

A large family of beetles or lumberjacks united 26,000 species. Medium-sized flat beetles have a distinctive feature - long, antennae bent backwards. Insect larvae develop in wood. Most longhorn beetles lay their eggs on dry rotting trunks, but the lumberjack brownie develops in freshly chopped wood. With infected lumber, the pest gets into houses where it sharpens walls and floor beams. The main threat is coniferous wood. The lumberjack larva has been making moves inside the building material for years. Finding a pest in the house. It is necessary to immediately proceed to its destruction.

Morphological description of the species

Lumberjack house or black house lumberjack (Hylotrupesbajulus) - a common species of beetles from the family of barbel. The sizes of adults are small 7-21 mm. The body is flattened, black, covered with short grayish hairs. Coarse dense puncture on head, longitudinal groove between antennae. The head is also covered with gray hairs. The eyes are deeply notched. Antennae thin, shortened, reach only the middle of the elytra.

Most beetles have an oval transverse pronotum densely covered with hairs. The punctures are fine at the base, and the hairs are short. The punctures on the sides are thicker, and the pubescence is longer. A smooth strip runs in the middle of the scutellum, convex corns are located on two sides of it. Hard elytra covered with wrinkled punctures. On their surface, gray hairs form several clusters in the form of uneven spots.
The limbs are well developed, consist of 5 parts. Front coxae wide apart. Paw of 5 segments, the third is divided into two parts, terminated in two claws. The hind legs are longer than the front. On the underside of the body are two types of light hairs - semi-adjacent and erect.

Variation in appearance

The house barbel is characterized by variability in the color of the elytra, sculpture of the shield and distribution of hairs. Beetles living in the south are distinguished by light elytra - brownish-yellow or pale yellow. Corns on pronotum are elongated and rounded. In various forms, the legs are painted black, brown or red-brown.

Distribution area

Black (gray) house lumberjack is widespread in Europe, is absent only in the far north. In the UK, it settles only in heated buildings. Beetles live in the Caucasus, the Middle East - Iran, Iraq, Syria. The species Hylotrupesbajulus was introduced into North America, southern Africa, and New Zealand.

Features of the development of insects

The beetle years begin in the second decade of June and continue until August. Adults are active on hot days, the peak of summer falls at noon and afternoon. Despite their small size, beetles make short flights. The female's life span is 25 days, during which time she manages to lay up to 400 eggs. After mating, she searches for a place for masonry.The female is attracted by the smells emitted by coniferous resin. Most often, they choose ordinary pine, white fir, ordinary spruce, European cedar. Oval elongated eggs (2 mm) are laid in the cracks of the cortex to a depth of 20-30 mm.

Larval development

The embryo stage lasts 1-3 weeks, the maturation of eggs depends on the ambient temperature. The young larva begins to move along the fibers of the tree. They are oval in shape, located in sapwood, the core remains intact. Bitches get by. Between the course and the surface of the wood there remains a thin section, which collapses when pressed.

The larva is white, fleshy, grows up to 25 mm. The head capsule is recessed in the chest. The jaws are strong, brown. On the head there are short antennae and three vertical eyes. There are reddish spots on the pronotum. Chest legs short, ending with sharp claws. Thin light hairs on abdomen. Motor corns are convex, leathery, have a longitudinal groove.
Larvae develop 3-4 years, there is a delay of up to 8 years. Before pupation, they gnaw a hole for the flight of adults. The cradle for the doll is lined with shavings. The pupal phase occurs in May. After 2-3 weeks, an imago appears and flies away.

Information. The unique property of black house barbel larvae is the ability to digest without the help of proteins and microorganisms located in the intestine.

The harmfulness of the barbel brownie

In nature, beetles populate dead wood of coniferous forests; the optimum humidity for them is 20%. But more often insects lay eggs in the wood of buildings, telegraph poles, sometimes in furniture. It is difficult to detect larvae; they do not appear on the surface, spending all the time inside the timber. The hidden activity of the pest leads to the defeat of significant sections of the building.

Information. The larvae of the lumberjack brownie lives exclusively in processed wood, preferably conifers. At greater risk are buildings built in areas with high humidity.

Signs of the appearance of beetles in the house:

• Numerous holes on the surface of wooden beams and other elements.
• Brown trash detection.
• The appearance of the characteristic sounds of the larva's vital activity is a crunch, rustling.
• Adults flying out of wood on the windows of the building.

Beetles can get into the walls of the house along with infected lumber, which was stored in high humidity. The development of the larvae in the thickness of the tree is indicated by the noise they make.

Pest Management Methods

The gluttonous faces of the black house lumberjack turn durable building materials into rotten decks. The design loses reliability, urgent destruction of pests and repair of damaged areas are required. There are several ways to deal with the larvae in the tree:

• chemical treatment;
• fumigation;
• Microwave disinsection.

Information. Special facilities can be used to treat the premises on their own, and fumigation and microwave exposure will require the involvement of disinfestation specialists.

Chemical treatment

Sufficiently hard wood is treated with contact and intestinal insecticides. Recommended preparations: “Antizhuk”, “Empire-20”, “Antishashelin”. Solutions are applied to the surface of the wooden elements from the spray gun. You can fill the insecticide through the tube directly into the larva passages. After the procedure, the hole is clogged with paraffin.

Professional processing

Fumigation, the use of gaseous toxic substances against beetles, gives a 100% positive result. Phosphine gas destroys lumberjacks at all stages of development. At the time of processing the building, residents leave it. Under the influence of microwave radiation, the larvae of longhorn beetles die from high temperature. The method is safe for people and wooden structures.

Home lumberjack is a dangerous technical pest that violates the integrity and strength of wooden structures.To prevent its occurrence, it is necessary to use dry wood, to carry out preliminary processing of lumber with long-acting insecticides.