Wood boring beetles in my pecan stash

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Cliff H.

Master Chef
Joined
Mar 18, 2006
Messages
6,143
Location
Jonesboro, Arkansas
I have a big pecan limb all cut up and stashed in my garage. I have not burned thru all of last years yet so the new stash has mostly gone unattended.

I noticed some sawdust in the pile but really didn't give it much thought. It is not uncommon to have worms in the wood.

I decided to split some of the pecan to see if I could get a look at the worms. Much to my suprise I find that I have a rather large amount of bettle larve in my pecan. These things are about the size, shape and appearance of a grub worm.

I split a 6" long pc of limb about 5" in diameter and I dug out 5 of these larve. They are making dust out of my pecan wood from the inside out. I am going to chunk a bunch of it tomorrow and get all the worms out that I can.

The one one the axe handle had to be at least 1" long.

img_170282_0_c5add8958fa964ff372a99b0c48e62cb.jpg


img_170282_1_682e7f783d2fdb3cb0dfac0a79f19bb9.jpg


img_170282_2_6738c09ea9b4ae7a399cdf19e8c3e438.jpg
 
I hate that. I was ripping an ash 4x4 on my table saw last week and hit a pocket of carpenter ants which headed in all directions. Some went down into the saw base which forced me to stop and dig out all the saw duct and ants so they wouldn't spread around into the house.
I'd burn your wood in the cooker. Grubs shouldn't make a difference. But like Bruce said, bacon should do nicely.
 
By chunk, I mean bust it down small. To much work has gone into it already. I think I can salvage most of it.

I am going to gather all the bugs up and feed them to fishes. :twisted:
 
Cliff, do they only eat dried wood? The ones down here won't mess with a tree that still has sap...
 
I spent four hours chunking up some of the larger pcs. For every swipe of the axe there was at least one worm. I must have gathered 100 of them. They seemed to be concentrated on one area of the limb that I cut up.

The larger end of limb didn't seem to have the little pin holes on the surface of the cross cut which is the dead give away that worms are present like the smaller end of the limb did.

The large branches that I had cut up were loaded with them also. All in all I spent four hours splitting two clothes baskets full of de-bugged pecan but I know that there are still some worms that I didn't get.

I have four times that amount that is still unsplit but there are no worm holes present. I hate to get rid of it but if I pass on it every time I get ready for some smoking wood then I might as well just pitch the de-bugged wood.
 
Well I would just burn it like normal wood. Flap the firebox door a few times when you add a log if the smoke looks/smells skunky. When it gets done looking skunky shut the door. That should teach them critters a valuable lesson. Now if the smoke dont never clear up dont pay any attention to whut I just said:)

bigwheel
 
give them a shot of jack,, when they get drunk, they fall off no problem or you can put a dehumidifiyer near by n dry them out there 96.9 persent water
 
Australian aborigines are very fond of their cousins, which are called witjuti or witchetty grubs.

My Aussie buddy got me good and drunk and got me to eat one. Tasted like chicken. The abos like them raw, but mine was grilled.
 
Back
Top Bottom