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How To Spot Bugs In Your Mesquite, Honey Mesquite


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The easiest way to spot bugs in your mesquite logs is look for the little piles of fresh saw dust....IMG_0480.JPG.460e7386ec4dacde6990da5c312ff4de.JPGIMG_0485.JPG.0316e8579bc54f817e500097ac69c569.JPGIMG_0484.JPG.53006cef533b26394dc21ee5f10a8b6e.JPG

 

Well I let my better judgement get the best of me as some were talking up Honey Mesquite here and since I was trimming large limbs this time of the year, I just couldn't help myself. Here, time is so important to out run the bugs, so to speak. So right after the limbs hit the ground I pulled the limbs around to the burn pile and right then I cut 20 pieces of good size  and that day hauled them up to the shop and sealed the ends with Aleene's glue and stacked then under the drum sander and other places in the shop. Did I also mention Aleene's glue stays pliable and seems to work better for when a crack is forming the glue will not crack like other hard drying product. And it dries clear so one can keep an eye on whats going on under the glue...IMG_0480.JPG.460e7386ec4dacde6990da5c312ff4de.JPG

 ...This is an insulated shop where I don't ever worry about bugs getting in unless I might be the one doing the transporting...

  I did all this about three or four weeks ago. This morning I took the pictures of the little saw dust piles... This exotic sounding honey mesquite I will be dealing with for some months to come...... and will be expensive to get under control...If I ever can. A person can actually hear the boarers doing their thing..

 I suppose a person could get a large vat  and a few hundred dollars worth of pariffin wax or aleene's glue or something similar and submerge the whole log.....

  Also in this area when a person builds something using mesquite and he knows for sure there are no bugs in that wood he better seal all areas on what ever he builds or else those little piles of saw dust will for sure show up in their house...

 Its really no difference of authorities trying to keep ash from being shipped out of Ohio or where ever the wood is being destroyed by the bugs but for some reason mesquite is being shipped all over for barbecuing meat. So that pops another question in my mind.... Do they treat the mesquite with chemicals then as a person is burning the wood is the chemicals being leached out in peoples lungs creating a more serious situation...

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I'm sure it would Gerald for none of the holes were in the the glued ends...But wow,, most of the 20 pieces are close to 2 foot long.  Lots of things might help. I remember my first job I had after school was at a grain elevator and to kill the weevils I would go up to the top of the elevator and drop cyanide tablets in the lid shut it and don't even get close to it for a few days, don't remember how long? So I could fix a 55 gallon drum so it would seal real tight, place all the mesquite in the drum, drop in the cyanide tablets, seal it up and wait a few days....  

  I'm just thinking how much trouble and time it would take me to debark these 20 logs I have in the shop then to coat them all with something.

  In this part of the country you don't buy a cord of mesquite in the spring or summer to be used for fire wood in the winter.....cause by the time you need the wood there is not much left to burn...

our out door cats go crazy trying to get to the sounds of the boarers chewing away inside the wood...

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You guys make it sound so easy, just unzip the bark and it falls off. I was talking about HONEY mesquite...and yes its hard to forget that name some one added to make it sound exotic.   Also in the bugs real world they never see any end grain  . besides since I posted the pictures the bugs are way past the bark.. This is just their entry point. I think the bugs do compete to see who is the first to enter a fallen tree or limb..

 

Just remove the bark. Sounds like a neighbor telling his friend about his blown up car motor. Just remove it and install another!! 

  But I do appreciate the suggestion.....

Edited by Smallpatch
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Herb we are trying to figure out how long this mesquite had been cut.. I had ordered a 12 yard load of top soil and decided it would be better for them to dump it on the front of the property for it had been raining and those heavy trucks might bog down anywhere else. But first I had to trim two mesquite trees. Trying to figure exactly how long that wood has been on the ground wife is trying to find the canceled check for the dirt????  Going on a month probably..

 Yesterday I decided to run these 20 piece through the microwave. I had to rip off part of a Y off with the band saw to fit in the microwave and about an inch in past the bark was three larva about 3/4" long....Now after I run most of the wood through the microwave I can at least see if it has killed the other bugs.

   I was always under the assumption the bugs never messed with a live tree but yes they could  be living in the bark as I have never cut into a fresh tunnel in live wood just cut off a tree. 

  Yesterday I ran most of these 20  pieces through the microwave for about 7 minutes each piece just to see how deep the bugs had buried themselves and if I had zapped the critters.

  I will cut some of those pieces in to match sticks just of learn what the microwave did and how fa the bugs has traveled in the length of time the limbs have been cut off...

  Hopefully I can report something later today.

  

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Sometime I will remove the bark with the chainsaw and lose some good wood in the process but in turning we would have lost that much or more. Actually in blank prep the pro turners cut away all bark.  I wonder if you spray with borax solution after felling the tree would help.

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Gerald about 15 years ago or close to that I bought a large truck load of S4S select  Ash in 1/4 and 1x8 at an auction. Most of it was 1x8 and maybe 1/5 was 1x4's.. The 1x4"s had powder post beetles. Lots of holes about the size of a straight pinup to 1/16".The county agents here didn't have a clue. I finally talked to some places that were trying to control in the problem in Ohio and they told me what to order..... I did and over the next two years I treated each and every board on every surface for a total of 4 times... Funny for the 1x8's never had a hole anywhere. I even got to taking a pencil and drawing a circle around each hole so I could tell if they were still active... This was the most beautiful Ash all in 14 and 16 foot pieces and the cheapest price I ever paid for hardwood but in the end was by far the most labor I ever attempted dealing  with woodworking....I still have about 50 1x8's. I had never dealt with wood that was smooth on all 4 sides.

  I did notice after the wood got zapped in the microwave the bark is easier to pry off.

Something interesting I just found.. I have mentioned I like to use Aleene's glue for the ends of the log..and these all had the ends sealed with it.  Before they got put in the microwave there were bubbles in the lighter wood closer to the bark...I finally got to inspecting the bubbles and the small powder post beetles had pushed saw dust up creating a bubble more that an 1/8" past the end making a bubble.. The glue had bulged out but didn't bust. So I guess he turned around and went another direction.. I might can get a picture of what I talking about... 

 

Edited by Smallpatch
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IMG_0531.JPG.1e531fec5952a388019df6320879e41e.JPGIMG_0538.JPG.081d5362621bf163bf5b5c0c2ac3b922.JPG

After seeing the bubbles I picked holes in them to see what happened.

Well I found out.....I started typing this before lunch then went and took some pictures and tried to post them but they wouldn't post with what I had been typing...Some of the bubbles are 3/16" high. The bubbles were there before the microwave and the glue looks good after the process of getting zapped..Second picture after I blew out the saw dust. I noticed the bugs get a half inch or so in the wood then they put larva in, laying or what??

  Can't remember exactly since I cut the logs off the tree but the sealing of the ends were about two week ago after I got them in the shop and stacked em under the drum sander.... Then a couple of day later sawdust started piling up... 

  I also cut about 1/4 cord and we put it in plastic containers and in to wifes shop, the 53 foot Aluminum enclosed refrigerator trailer...I thought that would be the best place to leave them for she was wanting fire wood and barbecue wood......Then after I showed her the saw dust piles she went and checked and she came back with a hand full of saw dust....so the last couple of days I been burning her wood also and some of the bigger stuff I couldn't get in the microwave.....Lost of labor lost and I will still not know if the microwave got all the bugs but I don't see how they could withstand the microwaves......

   The Aleene's glue held up good after the zapping..... 

I think I read where the bugs come out to find a mate then go back in for its their home and food is all around...

 Some of the smooth bark limbs, the smaller younger branches do have powder post beetles holes the size of a pin head on up to 1/8"

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Gerald the next time I will get a big wash tub to submerge the logs in right after I cut them down...

 

I read just the other day where someone from Texas had advertised mesquite blanks to be shipped to where ever in the northern states...and so many people don't realize what kind of a problem that will cause...unless those blanks have been kiln dried...

But wait, drying a large blank of mesquite might take several years especially being large blanks... and I doubt a large blank would ever get dried enough to kill boarers that might be deep inside the wood...

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When I was buying mesquite logs, some were less than a year old from when they were felled. Several were buggy. I just debarked them as I needed them and slabbed them up. As the rest set under a tarp for a few years, the bark almost fell off most of them. Some were full of holes. But, no live ones remained. The logs that I debarked never got infected. 

Now, I buy only live edge slabs. Bug holes are evident in most of the edges but, only about 1/8" to1/2" deep into the outer, cambium layer of wood, under the bark. 

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I shoulda said sap wood instead of canbium layer. At any rate, in my experience, the bugs seldom bore into the heart wood. 

I've shipped many pen blanks of heart wood. None had bugs or holes. A full cookie, cut for a bowl blank, might be buggy, especially if it's a fresh cut piece and the bark is still tight.

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You mean to say they don't go into the middle of a log like this.?? That's good to know!!IMG_0534.JPG.04c8450c8ba5474a2aee27ebc6753bec.JPG

 

This log didn't have any bark on and I had it hidden in  a thick plastic bag.IMG_0532.JPG.59b9af2c308f1b0d15ba52c6326c84eb.JPG

 This log sat in my shop in that plastic bag for maybe ten years with no bark. There were no holes no where when I put it in the bag.

 

This is two shots of the same log. I just cut it in two yesterday to see how deep they had gone.. IMG_0487.JPG.1a151665250548c23738b61251de9c96.JPG

 

I burned piles of logs for 2 days now. These were some of the plastic boxes we had stored in wife's shop. 

 

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