The Pest Advice

Borer beetle

• Identification
• Borer are also known as woodworm and furniture beetle.
• Species – Common Borer, Native Borer, Two-Tooth Borer, Citrus (Lemon Tree) Borer and others.
• Eat dead wood – dead trees, construction timber, furniture.
• Common Borer (and Native) adult beetles are small brown beetles (2-3mm) that can fly. Often found on windowsills.
• Small holes in timber – like drawing pin holes.
• Two-tooth – not so common – larger black beetle (6-7mm)
• Holes 4-5mm oval
• Dust falls out of holes.
• Clean wood inside hole means the hole is probably recent, meaning ongoing infestation.
• Holes tend to be in areas of low light – i.e. more under floor than on top.
• Breeding
• Female beetles lay eggs on bare timber i.e. not on paint, varnish, polish etc.
• But they will lay eggs in old flight holes.
• Eggs hatch as larvae that burrow into wood.
• After 2-4 years larvae pupate near surface.
• Adult beetle emerges and eats its way out – flight hole.
• Borer flight season October to March in NZ.

• Feeding habits
• Larvae eat wood – digest cellulose with micro-organisms in gut.
• Only eat soft timbers – sap wood.
• Hard heartwood usually un affected.
• Prefer wood with a little moisture – sub-floor, roof timbers near leaks, or with moisture holding terracotta/concrete tiles.
• Because of slow growth it takes many years to do significant damage to timbers.
• But many houses in New Zealand are over 50 years old.
• Spread
• Borer live in wild as well as in houses.
• Fly from house to house, forest to house, in furniture moved from house to house.

• Treatment
• Fluids
• Borer fluid on accessible timber – sub-floor, roof timbers, when GIB off internal walls etc.
• Fluid will not be effective on paint or other coatings.
• Borer Injector – flight holes.
• If many holes close together, possible to use NO Borer in sponge and sponge ito holes. (wipe off excess).
• Smell from solvent (turps or kerosene) can last several days. Only use in good ventilation.
• Spray or brush on. If spraying, use coarse spray to reduce mist in atmosphere.
• Fumigators
• Kiwicare NO Bugs Borafume or Bug Bomb
• Fumigators for places where timbers cannot be treated – hard to reach, painted areas, etc. Need to be used on 4+ consecutive years.
• Fumigate October to March (NZ).
• Borer fluid any time.

Wood boring insects such as the common borer (bora), two tooth longhorn and others like their wood with a little moisture; ‘to aid digestion.’

The North Island and Upper South Island of New Zealand have experienced one of the wettest Decembers on record and the damp conditions are set to continue for another week or two at least. This is the middle of the borer flight season and it is the time that people notice extra little holes in their weatherboards, floorboards, skirting, architraves, furniture and other wood around the home.

You may not be aware the extra activity in the borer world but the woodworm (borer larvae) will be taking advantage of the conditions to chew through more of your home and furniture. Then they pupate near the surface before emerging as adult beetles. As can be seen from the profile of the floorboard above the majority of damage and flight holes are on the underside, so that the adult borer emerge into the dark damp sub-floor areas. Damage to the observable surfaces of such timbers are a small fraction of the damage within.

The adults fly to find a mate and then the female seeks out some bare wood, preferably wood with a little moisture (sub-floor, old flight holes, eaves, etc.), to lay her eggs and start the whole life cycle over again.

Now is the best time to inject flight holes with borer injector fluid and the paint or spray bare timbers. if there are timbers such as the sud-floor that cannot be reached, bomb the adult borer with borer bombs.

What did the borer larvae say when he walked into the bar?
“Is the bar tender here?”

This may not be a silver lining, but perhaps I would refer to it as a ‘bronze lining’ for quake damaged home owners in Canterbury.

Recently I have had several enquiries about borer treatment from people in Christchurch. With so many homes damaged and in the process of being repaired, many are cottoning on to the fact that this provides an opportunity to protect timbers from borer.

This is the ideal time to treat the wood with Borer Fluid. NO Borer fluids get deep into the timber and both kill borer larvae present in the wood and protect the timber for many years. Often it can be difficult to treat wooden homes and homes with wood for borer. Treatment is often limited to slowing the damage with the use of Borafume and Bug Bomb fumigators because treatment of bare timber is not possible; it is normally hard to get at the interior of walls and the sub-floor of many houses. But, when repairs are being carried out, the timbers may be exposed.

Interior surfaces of weatherboards and structural timbers in the walls can be attacked much more heavily than is evident from the painted exteriors. In general there are 10 times as many flight holes inside the wall as on the exterior. Similarly the underside of floor boards are more heavily damaged. When repairs are being carried out and these, usually hidden, surfaces are exposed it is the time to treat them. Why put your home back together without protecting it from insect damage?

At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, silver medals were awarded to the winners and bronze for second place.

There has been an explosion in the number of enquiries to Kiwicare looking for help and advice to get rid of several insect pest species. The El Nino weather cycle that is bringing warm moist weather to New Zealand is ideal for breeding of many insect species.

The most spectacular rise in enquiries are for fleas, wasps, cockroaches, ants and borer. As an example the chart below shows the trend of enquires to the Kiwicare website for information on getting rid of wasps. The blue line in 2010 and the first week of this year. The green line is for 2009 and the first week in 2010. The wasp season is usually much later in the year, see the large spike in March and April 2010. But as you can see this season has started early and last week saw more enquiries that the peak of the season last year. A similar picture is emerging for the other insect pests I mentioned particularly fleas, see the second chart.

Wasps Enquiries – Comparison of 2010/11 with 2009/10

Fleas Enquiries – Comparison of 2010/11 with 2009/10

My advice is to be proactive. If you are likely to have problems with any of these pests now is the time to carry out preventative actions. Proof yourself against insects by carrying out a flying and crawling insect treatment.

Two fleas walk out of a bar. One says to the other “Shall we walk or take a dog?”

Are you finding more of those little holes in the wood around your home?

Spring sees the beginning of the borer flight season when the adult beetles emerge from their wooden food source to mate and start the cycle of destruction all over again. Homes in cooler and damper parts of New Zealand such Otago and Southland are most affected by these destructive insect pests but no part of the country is immune. Each year, as more damage is accumulated, our homes and other affected buildings become weaker.

It might take more than 50 years for damage to accumulate to the point of failure but the number of homes reaching such a venerable and vulnerable age is increasing. It is estimated that over six hundred thousand New Zealand homes are now over 50 years old.

Thankfully borer do not damage timbers as quickly as termites. If the slow increase in holes is noticed at all, the progress of the damage is often ignored for years. Each year the floor boards might creak a little more and the weatherboards might take a little more filling before painting; but until a floor board fails and you fall through, or the weatherboards start to rot because of water penetrating the holes, you may not be aware that your home is in danger.

Borer tend to attack softer timbers, so the older houses with structural timbers made of good quality heartwood are likely to be structurally safe, but even these houses often have decorative or non-structural timbers of softer sapwood. We often see weatherboards or floorboards riddled with borer holes next to undamaged boards. Even the same board may be heavily damaged in one area and undamaged elsewhere.

Floor board showing borer damage in lower two thirds

In the 1950s preservative timber treatment was introduced to new buildings and this has protected many timber homes of less than 60 years of age, but not all later houses used treated timbers and treatment loses effectiveness over time; it should not be expected the treatment will give protection for more than 50 years. There are many homes older than 50 years with susceptible timbers and the slow chewing of borer beetle larvae is now making more and more timbers fail. It might be too late for some parts of older houses but the borer damage can be stopped or at least slowed greatly by the use of protective borer products.

The larvae of the common wood boring beetles (Anobium punctatum and Leanobium flavomaculatum) are slow eaters; they chew through the interior of untreated timbers for 2-4 years before emerging from the wood between October and March. As they emerge they open the small (2-3mm) holes in the surface of the wood that we identify as borer infestation. When we see these holes in our weatherboards, architraves, skirting, floorboards and furniture we only see the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ The vast majority of the damage is within the timber where a labyrinth of tunnels has weakened the wood.
Borer control can be carried out effectively by the use of borer fluids that penetrate deep into the affected timbers and provide protection for many years. Even the timbers that are hard to reach such as roof timbers and floor timbers can be given protection by the use of borer bombs during the flight season. These kill the adult beetles that have emerged from the flight holes and stop them mating and laying their eggs back on the timbers. There are also aerosol injectors that can be used to treat individual flight holes in damaged painted or varnished wood. This will kill larvae deep within the wood and prevent eggs being laid in the holes.

Spring is a good time to examine your home for sign of borer infestation. I suggest looking for fresh flight holes. These will have a clean appearance inside the hole. It may take examining the holes with a magnifying lens. Sand like dust known as frass may also fall out of the flight holes when the wood is given a tap. So check your home and protect it from damage now before you fall through the floor.

A borer beetle walks into a bar. 
The bar says to the bartender. “I’m bored.”

In New Zealand our older housing stock is weakening each year as more wood boring beetle damage is accumulated. The larvae of the common wood boring beetles (Anobium punctatum and Leanobium flavomaculatum) are slow eaters; they chew through the interior of untreated timbers for 2-4 years before emerging from the wood between October and March. As they emerge they open the small (2-3mm) holes in the surface of the wood that we identify as borer or woodworm infestation. When we see these holes in our weatherboards, architraves, skirting, floorboards and furniture we only see the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ The vast majority of the damage is within the timber where a labyrinth of tunnels has weakened the wood.

Floor board showing majority of damage in lower half

Thankfully borer do not damage timbers as quickly as termites. If the slow increase in holes is noticed at all, the progress of the damage is often ignored for years. Each year the floor boards might creak a little more and the weatherboards might take a little more filling before painting; but until a floor board fails and you fall through, or the weatherboards start to rot because of water penetrating the borer holes, you may not be aware that your home is in danger.

It might take more than 50 years for damage to accumulate to the point of failure but the number of homes reaching such a venerable and vulnerable age is increasing. It is estimated that over six hundred thousand New Zealand homes are now over 50 years old.

Borer tend to attack softer timbers, so the older houses with structural timbers made of good quality heartwood are likely to be structurally safe, but even these houses often have decorative or non-structural timbers of softer sapwood. We often see weatherboards or floorboards riddled with borer holes next to undamaged boards. Even the same board may be heavily damaged in one area and undamaged elsewhere.

In the 1950s preservative timber treatment was introduced to new buildings and this has protected many timber homes of less than 60 years of age, but not all later houses used treated timbers and treatment loses effectiveness over time; it should not be expected the treatment will give protection for more than 50 years. There are many homes older than 50 years with susceptible timbers and the slow chewing of borer beetle larvae is now making more and more timbers fail. It might be too late for some parts of older houses but the borer damage can be stopped or at least slowed greatly by the use of protective borer products.

The cool damp conditions found in the south of New Zealand suit borer well and the homes of Southland, Otago and Canterbury suffer more than most from the ravages of borer. Borer control can be carried out effectively by the use of borer fluids that penetrate deep into the affected timbers and provide protection for many years. Even the timbers that are hard to reach such as roof timbers and floor timbers can be given protection by the use of borer fumigators during the flight season. These kill the adult beetles that have emerged from the flight holes and stop them mating and laying their eggs back on the timbers. There are also aerosol injectors that can be used to treat individual flight holes in damaged painted or varnished wood. This will kill larvae deep within the wood and prevent eggs being laid in the holes.

This is a good time to examine your home for sign of borer infestation. I suggest looking for fresh flight holes. These will have a clean appearance inside the hole. It may take examining the holes with a magnifying lens. Sand like dust known as frass may also fall out of the flight holes when the wood is given a tap. So check your home and protect it from damage now before you fall through the floor.

Surveyor: “This house is a structurally unsound. I wonder what is keeping it from falling down.
Owner: “I think the woodworm (borer larvae) are holding hands.”

There are many things more important than pests for the people of Canterbury to think about at this time; friends and family, making buildings safe, continuing aftershocks, the clean up etc. However, there should, perhaps, be some thought put into pests. In the case of rodents and flies they can be transmitters of disease, and this is a time that disease is one of the major threats. In the case of borer and ants this would be an opportunity to carry out effective control programs.

The ground in Christchurch and surrounding districts has been given a good shake up. The buildings that many pests live in have also been shaken and many destroyed. Pests that naturally live and nest in the ground or live in buildings with us, such as rats, mice, borer, flies and ants will have had a shake up also. What is likely to happen to the pests? What effect will the quake have on them?

Rats and Mice
Norway rats (sometimes known as water rats) normally live in burrows but often make their homes in sewers, drains and buildings. They are strongly commensal with human activity. Roof rats are naturally arboreal, usually living and nesting in trees, but they often live in the roofs and higher parts of our buildings, as their name suggests.

It seems likely that rats of both types will have been shaken out of their normal routine. While many will have been killed as their nests collapsed, many more will have been induced to leave their ‘homes’ and will scatter, seeking new places to find food sources and shelter. The destruction of buildings and their contents will have broken food storage containers and facilities perhaps allowing access to the food for rodents and other pests.

With broken sewers and water systems there comes a risk of direct contamination of water supplies from sewers, but also of rats that had been living in sewers carrying disease to new areas. The same is probably the same with mice. Rats and mice dribble urine continually and produce many droppings each day.

Take care when cleaning up your home or workplace. Wear gloves and carry out good hygiene to prevent picking up disease such as gastroenteritis, Wiel’s disease, salmonella, E. coli etc. Remove or secure possible food sources for pests as soon as possible. Carry out preventative rodent control.

Ants and Other Insect Pests
The major ant pests in Christchurch are Darwin and Argentine ants. Both these species commonly live in nests in sandy soil. Both also produce ‘super colonies’ where several nests co-operate and act as a single colony. Each nest contains multiple queens, each capable, with only a few workers, of setting up a new nest.

It seems likely that many ant nests have been destroyed. However, as with rodents, it seems likely that many more nests will have been disturbed and the colonies will have ‘budded’ as queens with their own groups of workers leave damaged and disturbed nests in seek of new places to set up home. So there may be an initial reduction of ant numbers across the city but those remaining will be seen more as they move. As warm weather arrives, ant colony size will rise quickly. New ant nests are likely to find new sources of food and shelter quickly.

While ants are under environmental stress from the disturbance of the earthquake it would be a good time to carryout an ant control program around your property to prevent ants setting up home there.

A similar story is likely to be the case for many other insect pests that casually intrude into buildings.

Borer
The damage to wooden buildings is not likely to have any impact on the borer larvae within. Many damaged old buildings will have to be pulled down and rebuilt and new timber will be treated and protected from borer attack. Many homes and other buildings will not be damaged to such an extent and will be repaired.

Some thought should be taken about rebuilding. If borer infested timbers such as weatherboards, joists, beams etc. are exposed during repair this is an ideal time to treat the bare timber with borer protection such as NO Borer fluid. You can get up to 20 years borer protection from such treatment.

Flies
The temperature reached 21C in Christchurch yesterday, which was pleasant for those living without electricity, but it is an indication of warmer weather to come in spring and summer and immediately encourages flies to breed. The warm weather combined with broken sewers, spilled food and other fly breeding places may see a rapid increase in fly numbers. Flies are carriers of disease and may move from sewerage to your kitchen work surfaces or food. It would be advisable to carry out pre emptive fly control and use surface sprays such as NO Bugs Super and NO Flies to reduce the risks and annoyance of flies.

Kiwicare product will continue to be available from our retailers throughout Canterbury. Kiwicare is a Canterbury company and we wish everyone in the region all the best in this difficult time.

A mouse walks into a bar and asks the bartender “Have you got any cheese?”
“No” says the barman.

“Got any cheese?” Repeats the mouse.
“No, I have no cheese” says the barman.

The mouse: “Got any cheese?”
Barman: “NO. Are you deaf? I said I have NOT got any cheese.”

“Got any cheese?”
“I am cheesed of with you! But I have no cheese and if you don’t stop asking me if I’ve got cheese I’ll nail you to the bar.”

“Got any nails?”
“No”

“Got any cheese?”

The Indian summer that we have enjoyed over the past months seems to have extended the period that borer beetles have been on the wing as adults. This means that there is still time to use borer bombs (NO Bug Borafume) to knock down the adult beetles and stop them laying eggs on timbers such as your sub-floor.

However, the long term treatments for protecting your floor, wall and roof timbers from borer attack can be carried out at any time of the year. Treating timbers with NO Borer Concentrate or ready to use fluid  or NO Borer injector controls the borer larvae that do the damage inside the wood and prevent adults laying eggs on the wood. Such treatment can give more than 10 years protection to timbers.

Damage of sub-floor and weather board timbers are the most likely and the easiest to identify. Flight holes are easily seen in the exterior of painted weather boards, sofits and barge boards. The holes are between 1mm and 3mm in diameter. These are created where the borer larvae pupate near the surface and the adult beetle eats its way out, usually between October and March. There are likely to be many more flight holes on the internal surfaces of weatherboard timbers than on the exterior and on sub-floor surfaces than top surfaces of floor timbers. As you can see in the photograph above borer can cause considerable damage to timbers without many flight holes being visible. In the photo of a floorboard the damage is largely limited to the lower half of the board. This is because borer prefer to emerge in dark areas away from light and they prefer a little moisture in the timber that comes from the ground below.

The adults beetles mate and the female looks for bare untreated timber to lay her eggs. Often she will lay the eggs in an old flight hole. So treatment of flight holes with a NO Borer Injector will deny the flight holes as places of re-infestation.


Knock knock. Who’s there?
“Woodworm.”
“Woodworm who?”
“Woodworm hole be enough or would you like two?”

Bug bombs and vapour fumigators are also effective at eradicating adult and larvae of many other insects including, fleas, cockroaches, flies and spiders. Note: for most insect pests additional treatments with residual products are required for ongoing control.

How to Use Bombs and Fumigators
These products work in enclosed spaces. The better sealed the space the more effective the products will be or the fewer bombs and fumigators are required. There are two types of bomb or fumigator; aerosols with a click down activation trigger and water activated vapour fumigators.

1. NO Bugs Bug Bomb or NO Bugs Borafume Fumigator – Read the instructions on the can and calculate the number of aerosols or fumigators you need for the areas you need to treat. The average house will need three for the rooms and one or two for roof voids. Sub-floors will depend on the height above the ground.
2. Cover or remove fish and fish tanks. Have all people and pets vacate the areas. 
3. Close all doors and windows except those you will exit via. Seal any other ventilation points.
4. Place all the aerosols or fumigators to be used on stable surfaces in the centre of the spaces to be treated. Fumigators get quite hot so place them on a heat resistant surface.
5. Plan the order in which you well set them off and retreat from the areas so that you can set them off in sequence and exit the building after the final bomb is activated. Fumigators should have the fumigator foil wrapping opened and the correct amount of water added to the plastic reservoir cup.
6. Aerosols – Set the bombs off by clicking down the activator firmly. The bomb should emit at stream of vapour. Depending on the temperature and humidity you may see the vapour more or less.
   Water Activated Fumigators – Place the fumigator in the water taking care to put the fumigator in the correct way up. The fumigator will emit vapour after approximately 1-2 minutes.
7. Close and lock doors behind you as you exit.
8. Stay out of the treated areas for at least 2-3 hours for the aerosol and at least 3 hours with the fumigator. Stay out longer if possible.
9. Return to the house and open doors and windows to fully ventilate the treated areas. Remove any covers that have been placed over vents.
10. You should now be free of adult insect pests in the treated areas, but remember that there is no residual effect from these products. We recommend the use of residual surface sprays for ongoing protection from most insect pests. Check out the advice for the pest bothering you on the main Kiwicare website.

Good Morning Followers……….or should that be follower?

I have such an ‘interesting’ life. I am off to the National Possum Control Agencies Technology Transfer Conference in Wellington this evening. It will be two days of hearing about and talking about the best ways to stop possums damaging New Zealand’s environment and transmitting tuberculosis to cattle, deer and other animals.

1080 is a popular subject for discussion among delegates. Most of those in the industry would welcome an alternative if it was as cost effective or the money was forthcoming to use the more expensive options that already exist.

Kiwicare manufactures NO Possums Cholecalciferol Gel Bait which is a very novel bait. It will remain effective over long periods (up to 26 months) so that time spent replacing deteriorated bait is saved and control is maintained over extended periods. The gel formulation and use of choleclciferol (vitamin D3) as the toxin makes the bait unattractive and of low toxicity to birds. Cholecalciferol also has low eco-toxicity as it does not build up in the food chain reducing risks of secondary poisoning of scavengers. The bait is available for use by anyone wanting to control possums, even if it is only to stop them eating the roses in your garden or you want to protect the block of native bush on your lifestyle block. It does not require a licence.

Enough of possums! I was supposed to be talking about borer. A rather different type of pest problem. Borer (also known as woodworm) are small brown beetles whose larvae eat their way through soft timbers including our weatherboards, floorboards, joists and furniture. You will know you have a problem with borer if you see small holes (flight holes) in your wood as if someone had thrown a dart into the wood. These holes are where the borer beetle has emerged after 2-4 years as a larva. The majority of these holes will be found in dark areas where the humidity is higher, e.g. under the floor, inside the walls and in a roof space if there is a roof of concrete or terracotta tiles.

The good news is that you can easily stop the borer damage. Treat the timber. If the timbers can be accessed they can be sprayed or painted with products that kill the larva and prevent new infestation for many years. On painted, varnished or polished surfaces the flight holes can be injected. Even when the affected wood cannot be accessed at all the use of borer bombs can control the adults and slow down their re-infestation of the timbers.

I have often heard it said that a house has never fallen down due to borer damage in NZ. This might be true, but it is only because most houses are only now old enough to have been that heavily damaged (it takes at least 50 years) and houses are condemned before they fall down.

This is the flight season (November-February) when adult beetles emerge from the timers and this is when borer bombs are most effective. The other treatments are equally effective at all times.

Save your property. Act now.

One woodworm asked her boyfriend. “How’s life?” she asked.
“Same as usual,” he replied, “boring.”

Good Morning from a cool Christchurch. Here at the head offices of Kiwicare the temperature at 10am is still in the low teens and I am regretting not putting my sweater on this morning. I didn’t bring it with me as I had seen the weather forecast and the high for the day is to be 28 degrees C. So the weather today is reflecting the variability of temperatures we have experienced this spring so far.

What implications has this had for pests in New Zealand? Insects are heavily influenced by temperature. When temperatures rise insects become more active and breed more quickly. We have seen flies, spiders, ants, cockroaches and other pests start to increase in numbers, but the cool interludes have slowed them down again each time. At least that seems to be the case in the South Island.

There is still time to get out and carry out a preventative treatment of your home or office. Stop insects plaguing you this summer. Prevention is always better than cure. Check out the Kiwicare website (http://www.kiwicare.co.nz/) for specific information on how to control all sorts of insect pests.

I am able to analyse what visitors to the Kiwicare website have searched for when they visit. I follow the trends and have seen the biggest increases in searches relating to White Tail Spiders (or Whitetail or Whitetailed or White-tail…..spider) and Borer. I found a large female White Tail in my own house last week. It reminded me that I had not sprayed the house for spiders and insects since last spring. I carried out a treatment and this weekend, when doing my vacuuming and dusting chores, I found a number of dead White Tails. I used NO Bugs Super which is a long lasting and safe pyrethroid surface spray so there are no fumes in the air to breath in. NO Spiders would have been equally effective.

If you have any questions on spiders or other pests around the house or garden contact us at Kiwicare we will do our best to help you.

My next blog will tell you something about borer.

Little Miss Muffet,
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her.
So Muffet gave it a spray.