Added some blue spruce to the stacks this spring as they are dying out due to some kind of fungus. I was holding off splitting them as they were covered in resin. Just noticed that some kind of critter is helping them dry in the round by boring holes through them. You can hear these things chewing away, but I have not seen what they look like. Anyone here have this problem and know what is doing this? If you look at the left side a little over half way down you can see a couple small holes.
Don't know what they are, but once the wood dries, most usually unappear pretty quick. Get it split so it can start drying, or they'll eat it all.
Pitch mass borer is my guess. It is also why those trees are dying and covered in sap (pitch) http://treedoctor.msu.edu/July13_PitchMassBorer.pdf
That sounds like good advice to me. I don't usually stack rounds, but this is the first time I have worked with spruce. I never worry about ants because I have found that once split, the environment they like has been destroyed. Perhaps I can get a picture of the critter once I start splitting them up. This could be it. The resin on mine was just from the cut ends. I probably should have split it, but didn't want to get the sticky stuff on my splitter (I'm still in baby mode with my new splitter ).
Its kind of nuts how loud those things are when they are munching away. They leave after a while, I think like previously said when the wood starts drying out.
I've had them in the spruce I carve into pumpkins too. They're borers for sure, there are many different species. Not exactly sure what species likes the spruce.
