found this guy feasting on one of the maple rounds i split yesterday. Punky center. Find these often in punky wood in any season. The last two pics are a winged version (pupated) of whatever was tunneling through a hemlock round i split and it fell out of, at my friends last week. It couldnt fly yet. It is not a bee...no stinger and had a "tail" which im holding.
No expert in this subject at all but the winged insect looks like a parasitic wasp. The "tail" being the way it injects it's eggs into other insects for them to brood in. I'm pretty sure it didn't come from that larvae worm thing. Unless it hatched out of one that was consumed. Fairly certain the larvae is a type of beetle. Destructive little bastards. Sometime come up with over a dozen in one split.
makes sense. Im familiar with the wasps doing that on other insects and spiders too. Ive seen bunches of grubs in splits too. Plus the other ones under the bark. Bet they dont have an issue of enough fiber in their diet!
Yep, they start out small under the bark and then bore in deeper. The wood we are processing right was cut in Nov '18. The grubs at under the bark or just starting bin the wood. Birds love them. When we had chickens and found lots of bigger ones, they had treats.
Ive found bunches at a time and brought them back for the birds as well. Left them on a piece of bark on the deck table and later they were gone.
This oak was dropped Nov '18. Looks like it's just the right time to be processing it. Bark is just getting loose a little. Grubs are just under the bark.
