Woodboring Beetle, the Silent Wood Destroyer

The woodboring beetle is one of the threats that is very damaging to the wood and its products. The insect uses wood as a medium for living, breeding, and a source of food for its lives. Woodborer has become the enemy for woodworkers because it damages almost all wood and wood products, such as furniture, floors, doors, walls, and construction. This insect's attack is easily recognized by the presence of wood powder on the surface of the wood, which is why it is also known as :powder post beetles.

The life cycles of woodborer beetle

There are several species of woodborer beetles; each has slight differences in size, shape, and life span, but in general, the life cycle of these insects is very similar. The woodborer life cycle is as follows: egg, larva, pupa, and adult insect. Eggs are the insect’s tool to reproduce and create new living creatures. Adult insects’ mate and produce fertile eggs, which will grow to be new insects. The mother insect lays its eggs on the wood surface; wood cracks or injects them into the wood. These eggs will stay in the wood for a certain time until they hatch to become larvae. The eggs will stay in the wood and survive at a certain time, which varies depending on the species and the wood condition. After hatching, the larvae begin to dig tunnels in the wood to feed. 

This larvae phase is the phase that damages wood. The larvae eat wood and form tunnels in the wood, which will damage the wood structure from the inside until they become adult larvae (pupae). The larval phase can last from several days to several months, depending on the species and environmental conditions. After eating enough and becoming mature, the larvae enter the pupal phase, where they rest and undergo metamorphosis into adult insects. Adult insects emerge from the wood through the small holes they make. At this stage, they will fly to find a mate to breed and produce new eggs to continue their life cycle.

life cycle of the wood beetle borer 

Problems caused by woodborers

Wood that is attacked by this insect has typical signs: the holes appearing on the wood surfaces and accompanied by the wood powder on it. When this happens, the larvae in the wood are actually living in the wood, eating the wood and forming tunnels in the wood for their growth. If this is not addressed immediately, the life cycle of the woodborer keeps continuing, and the process of destroying wood will continue until the wood be porous, damaged, and destroyed. 

This insect attack can actually be stopped by killing and stopping the life cycle of this insect. However, in practice, this process is not easy to carry out. The life cycle of the woodborer is unpredictable, depending on the species of insect and environmental conditions. Because of this reason, the emergence of insect attacks cannot be predicted; some wood is attacked by insects just a few days after the wood is cut down and dried, but there are many attacks that appear after the wood has been left for several months or even after several years. 

Insect attacks that occur when wooden products are installed and used will make the treatment process is complicated. The anti-insect in the form of gas is easy to be applied for the whole product, but it will disappear quickly after few days. Meanwhile, this chemical is only effective for killing woodborers in the form of larvae, pupae, or insects and cannot kill the eggs. Eggs that hatch when the chemical disappears will keep continuing their life and grow to be new creature. 

The chemical in liquid form will work better than gas because it can wet the wood and remain in there. So, when the eggs hatch, it is still working to kill the newly hatched insects. However, the application is quite complex and rather difficult. The liquid must wet all over the wood completely to ensure that all existing insects die and their life cycle stops. This is not easy to do considering that insect repellent is a poisonous substance and can harm human health. The chemical application has to be done carefully to make sure it is safe for humans. The application of the chemical liquid becomes more difficult on wood that is in hard-to-reach places, such as wood for building construction or the wood products that are large size and already in use.

How to overcome the wood beetle bug

• Wood treatment with anti-insect repellent

Prevention is better than curation. The treatment with wood preservative chemicals is the most recommended action since it is cheap, easy, and gives the best results. There are many wood preservative chemicals that are designed to make the wood be toxic and unliked by the insects. The chemical not only prevents the wood beetle borer but also the termite and other insect. There are some types of chemical wood repellents, and each of them has its own specification. 

The chemical containing boron is the cheapest material, but it needs a vacuum machine for application. It is commonly used to take care of the wood that needs a vacuum process for drying, such as rubberwood or mango wood. The application of wood preservative is carried out together with the drying process. The wood plank is put into a vacuum machine to pull out its sap inside, and then the preservative chemical is flowed into the wood and pressed to let it penetrate into the wood cell. More information about the vacuum process can be read in our previous article: Vacuum process for  wood preservativion.

Then the wood plank is taken into the oven to be dried. Some other wood preservative chemicals can be applied by the soaking process. The wood is soaked in the liquid chemical before going to the drying process. It does not need a vacuum machine, but the price of the chemical is more expensive.

There are other types of wood preservative chemicals that can be applied to the dried wood. The chemical can be applied by soaking, brushing, or spraying. The application must be done before the finishing process is started. The application on the coated wood will not be effective since the finish film will block the chemical penetration to the wood. Chemicals can be brushed, sprayed, or used to soak wood, components, or wood products until they wet the entire surface of the wood and absorb by the wood. The better penetration of the chemical results in better protection. 

After the wood is filled with the preservative chemical, it needs to be dried before continuing to the finishing process. Some types of preservative material can also be mixed with the finishing materials to give more protection to the wood product.

• Fumigation

Fumigation is a sterilization process using poisonous gas or fume. The fumigation process is simpler than the liquid chemical application, but actually it is less effective to handle the woodborer. The wooden product is wrapped in a tight wrap, then flowed with poisonous gas for several minutes. The poisonous gas will kill the insects and organisms in the product. Fumigation can indeed kill all living creatures, but it cannot kill insect eggs in there. When the gas runs out and the air is clean, the insect eggs can hatch and continue their lives.

•  Veneering

Veneer is wood that is sliced thinly and glued to wood or engineered wood products. The veneering process can also minimize the wood beetle problems. Veneer, which is a thin layer of wood, will eliminate insect eggs in the wood. The veneer has to be glued to its core, which will also inhibit the growth of insects because only a thin layer of wood remains on the wood product. If the veneer is layered at the engineering product, then no insect will remain in the product. 

• Coating with finishing materials

The wood finishing process will produce a film layer on the wood surface. If the film is thick enough, he will protect the wood from the insect. But the finishing material will not really work to prevent the wood from insect attack. The coating film works to protect the wood from outside attacks but cannot overcome the insect attacks from eggs that are already in the wood. If the wood already contains insect eggs, the eggs will hatch in the wood and eat the wood from the inside without hindrance