(to the tune of "Who's That Knocking at My Door") I stepped outside to take some air yesterday when I heard a faint crunch, crunch, crunch coming from the direction of the stacks, which were about 30 feet away. It sounded familiar. I followed it to its source, an unsplit round of white fir on the top of the most recent stack. There was a fairly large pile of frass under the round, which I recognized immediately. It was the tell-tale sign of one of these little beggars. a pine sawyer or roundheaded wood borer, the larvae of the Pine Sawyer or Longhorn Pine Beetle. It's amazing how much noise these things make and how much wood they can chew up. Fortunately, they only bore in the sapwood, so the depth of the destruction is limited. They are about 1-1/2 in. long, I've been wondering how they'd be pickled in tequila. While excavating for my leach field, I found similar grubs, but much larger. They were about 4 in. long, the size of a large tomato worm. Never did figure out what they were.
Sapsuckers had hammered a White pine on the edge of my yard. This attracted the pine borers. I could sit 50 yards away and listen to the chewing . 1 season and the tree was a gonner. Could the larger grubs be Junebeetle. larvae? We have them here but more like 2" long.
I have no experience with the wood borers but will relate a similar story. My Wife has hearing like a bat. This makes it difficult for me to discuss wood gathering or hunting plans with a buddy when she can hear our conversation from the other room through a closed door while she is watching TV! She kept telling me that she was hearing crunching/chewing noises from outside at night while we were in bed. I thought she was ...well...batty. As it turns out, there was a small paper wasp nest outside our bedroom in the eaves of the roof. Apparently the little bastage wasps grit their mandibles all night long and it makes a noise that the Wif could hear. Go figure! The pressure washer solved that problem!
That's what garages and air compressors are for My hearing is like that, that's how I found the yellow jacket nest in my wall.
If they like eating it, your wood must be "well seasoned" then! I find all sorts of grubs in logs/splits. Sometimes if there is a lot, ill bring them up and put them out for the birds.
"Well Seasoned"! They attack weakened and freshly felled trees. Once things dry out, they do too. I've found them mummified under the bark. They seem to prefer white fir (and perhaps Doug fir) around here. The smell of freshly split wood seems to attract the yellow jackets, which start feeding on the helpless borers.
BINGO! You just solved the other mystery, what the hell are those giant beetles that are attracted to my porch lights. Why they call them June Beetles I can't imagine, we get them in November - January.
I spent a summer sawing lumber on a portable band saw mill and those white spotted pine sawyer would land on the back of my neck a couple of times a day, usually when you had an arm full of lumber. I got to hate those things and got real good at the grab drop and stomp on them. To this day, it brings a smile to my face digging through the wood pile to find the one piece of wood going crunch, crunch crunch and throwing it in the fire.
I gather you mean that, in the garage with the compressor going, would make it hard for her to hear that I was planning to stack wood in her parking spot. Well... maybe. I guess I really need a "Cone of Silence" like Maxwell Smart had!
