How to protect a wooden house from a bark beetle?

A small bark beetle causes quite serious damage to forests, gardens and wooden structures. Intensive breeding of these beetles in our country is promoted not only by favorable climatic conditions, but also by massive deforestation without subsequent cleaning of the territory. The bark beetle settles in fallen trunks and stumps, which become real seedlings of parasites.

Characteristic

Bark beetle is a small beetle whose body length, depending on the species of the insect, can be from 0.8 to 9 mm. On the head, which is pulled into the prothorax, there are cranked antennae with a large mace at the end. On the carapace and thin paws, hard bristles are clearly visible, on the elytra - dotted grooves. The forehead can be absolutely flat, concave or convex, which depends on the sex of the insect, for example, in males, the forehead surface is most often concave or flat.

On the slope of the elytra of the bark beetle there is a so-called wheelbarrow - an impression that can be less or more deep. The posterior coxae of the legs are transverse, the anterior ones are large, almost round. The tibia is flattened and small teeth or tubercles pass along its upper edge.

Outwardly, bark beetles of some species look like elephants of Cossoninae, but at the same time they are quite close to the subfamily of weevils.

Developmental stages

Bark beetles spend almost their entire lives inside a tree. Adults make an inlet in the cortex, after which they feed channels and reach the most succulent wood tissues. In the upper layers of sapwood, females make masonry.

On a note! The moves are quite diverse, but their shape directly depends on the type of beetle!

A legless bark beetle leaves the egg. Her body is white or somewhat yellowish, has a sickle-shaped shape, curved towards the abdomen. Larvae move with the help of callus pads. The head is brown or yellow-brown, sclerotized.

Larvae also make their moves in the wood and they begin from the place where the eggs were laid. At the end of each turn, a pupal cradle is formed and it is usually located in close proximity to the surface. After the pupal phase is over, a young beetle comes to the surface.

Food

And what does the bark beetle eat? Representatives of most species are arboreal and settle under the bark. Some bark beetles arrange their nests directly in the bark, sometimes right in the wood. Tropical species, as a rule, live in the seeds and fruits of tree species, units - in the stems, fruits and seeds of herbaceous plants.

On a note! The latter, due to the peculiarities of nutrition, quite often “travel” around the world and are imported to those countries where they did not previously live!

Signs of infection

Characteristic signs of the appearance of a bark beetle in the house will be:

• inlets in wooden structural elements - those species that prefer hardwood leave well-visible inlets on the bark;
• in the section, the insect's nest, having the form of a complex pattern, will be clearly visible - its beginning is visible at the entrance channel, then passes into the mating chamber, numerous, often confused, larval passages will be located perpendicular to it;
  
• the surest sign is drill flour on the surface of the wood and on the floor under the infected wooden element;
  

  On a note! The color of the crumbled drill flour will depend on the part of the tree in which the moves were laid!

• sometimes resin funnels are clearly visible near the inlet.

Pests penetrate the wooden elements of a residential building from trees growing nearby, or are imported together with building material. And it is better to provide protection against bark beetle even before the time of construction. For this, it is necessary to carefully inspect the lumber before buying for small oval holes. Contaminated products, next to which there will be sawdust flour, should be discarded immediately.

Recommendation! If you take wood with bark, then it should be examined with special zeal, since it is quite difficult to see the traces of bark beetles on it. In this situation, you need to look at the ends - they must be perfectly flat and smooth, without the slightest sign of rottenness!

After acquiring building materials, it is advisable to sand each log and pole, and collect and burn the bark outside the site. Plus, wooden elements must be impregnated with special preparations. Products such as Antishashelin, Antizhuk, Empire 20, Akvateks, Wood Healer, Senej, etc., have proven themselves as prophylactic agents. Processing from bark beetles is carried out for all types of wood, regardless degree of saturation.

On a note! Easily impregnated species, such as pine, beech and birch, are more often infected by a bark beetle, but it is they that are impregnated with antiseptics faster. Spruce, fir and larch are hardly impregnated; the likelihood that a pest is established in such breeds is very small, but they also need protection!

Destruction methods

If prevention has not been carried out and the bark beetle has settled in a wooden house, then in such a situation you should definitely know how to get rid of it. Moreover, it is advisable to take measures at the first sign of infection. Otherwise, the bugs will completely ruin the wooden elements in a rather short period of time and you will not be able to repair them.

The above insecticides and antiseptics will help the owners of wooden houses. They are quite effective not only in prevention, but also in the fight against the parasite. However, the measures applied will vary slightly depending on how much the wood is contaminated. And despite the degree of defeat, the fight against the bark beetle must be waged until all adult individuals and their larvae are destroyed.

1. First you need to establish how much the insects managed to spoil the wooden elements. A knife or screwdriver is usually used here, and if the tool penetrates deep into the tree, then the damage is quite significant. In this case, this part of the structure should be removed, and in its place install a new element and carefully process it.
2. If there are few inlets, then in this case the method of introducing the drug into the holes using a syringe is considered quite effective. The insecticide is administered repeatedly as it is absorbed into the wood. Finally, the outputs are coated with sealant.
   

   Recommendation! Inspect and process wood elements in this way with particular care, being careful not to miss a single hole. Otherwise, bugs remaining in undetected passages will continue to multiply and parasitize!

3. If the wood has retained its strength, it is recommended to impregnate it with insecticides by the continuous processing method.In this case, it is desirable to choose a remedy for bark beetle, characterized by a long duration. The material is impregnated three times with an interval of one day. This is necessary so that the active substances of the drug penetrate to a sufficiently large depth. If the external surfaces of the walls and other elements located in the open air succumbed to processing, then after impregnation they should be covered with a protective layer that will prevent washing off and weathering of the product.

Advice! Remember that with a single measure it is impossible to destroy all pests, because after some time the larvae hatch from the laid eggs and again attack the wooden elements of the structure.

Folk remedies

The destruction of the bark beetle can also be carried out with the help of home-made preparations:

• hot linseed oil or boiling water - they are used in cases where the appearance of the log house is not important; means scald all affected surfaces, trying to get into the holes;
• turpentine with kerosene - the components are mixed in a 1: 3 ratio and the resulting composition is injected into the passages laid by the larvae with a syringe.

After processing, as in the case of the use of insecticides, the holes should be coated with sealant. At the same time, it is better to use preparations based on silicone for external surfaces, and acrylic for internal surfaces.

When constructing a wooden house, it is very important to carefully process all wood building materials with antiseptics or insecticides. And at the same time pay attention to the period of their work, in order to know when to carry out repeated protective measures. And since it is quite difficult to deal with bark beetle, it is advisable to pay special attention to prevention.