The longhorned beetle is an uninvited guest in private homes and city apartments. Its name speaks for itself - it is a small, black insect with a blue-green tint and mustaches that are longer than its body. The body consists of a head, antennae, thorax, elytra, wings, limbs and abdomen. On its head there are powerful front jaws, the eyes are located on the sides. The antennae have a scaly or serrated structure. The insect's chest and back consists of three fragments, covered with beautiful iridescent wings.
Not all barbels can fly; their slow flight is accompanied by a loud sound. The limbs are made up of five components - pelvis, trochanter, femur, tibia and tarsus. The abdomen is five-segmented and soft. Males have pointed antennae, females have rounder and thicker antennae, as well as longer antennae.
A little bit of biology
Longhorned beetles have fairly small sizes (from one to several tens of millimeters), a flat body and mustaches, which are the main organ of smell. The color of lumberjacks is usually brown or dirty gray; less commonly, the longhorn beetle is black. The photo allows you to examine the insect in more detail.
The larvae of the pest are characterized by particularly powerful jaws, thanks to which they can handle both hard wood and soft metal with a cable-type coating. However, the beetles do not eat the latter so readily, preferring wooden structures and stacked boards.
The female barbel lays her eggs (from 200 to 400 pieces) in recesses or cracks in the tree, and after 7-14 days the larvae are born, which instantly activate the process of destroying the tree.
It is worth emphasizing that it is almost impossible to immediately notice a tree disease, since the larvae lead a hidden lifestyle. So, you can understand that your wooden house has succumbed to the harmful effects of longhorned beetles only when the real results of their work (destroyed and loosening wood) are visible.
Features
The woodcutter beetle has a number of characteristic features that distinguish this type of pest from many others. These include:
- Long mustache. The longhorned beetle has prominent whiskers that are 2-5 times longer than the insect itself.
- Slender and elongated body. The length of the body varies from 3 to 60 mm.
- Wings. Some species of woodcutter beetles can fly.
- Hair.
Ground beetles
These creatures belong to the suborder of carnivorous Coleoptera and for the most part form a large family, in which scientists number about 25 thousand species alone, although there is an assumption that twice as many of them live on Earth. Moreover, about three thousand varieties are found in Russia.
These are very large beetles, the size of which reaches 6 cm, but for the most part is about 3 cm. They are mostly dark in color, often with a metallic, sometimes rainbow tint. However, the colors of the species are varied, as is the shape of their bodies. Most of the varieties have underdeveloped wings, and therefore almost do not fly, but they develop considerable speeds when running.
Most often they are predators, and therefore feed on worms, butterflies, snails, slugs and only a little plant food. Ground beetles go hunting at night and become especially active on cloudy days in the warm months. Their main habitat is the upper layers of soil; in rare cases they can be seen on trees and other plants.
Golden ground beetles, which live in Europe and central Asia, are considered the most voracious. They love to feast on gypsy moths, and by eating this pest of cultivated plants, they bring undoubted benefits. The purple ground beetle is also famous for its good appetite, which is very useful.
The main color of such beetles is dark, but with a purple border, which is why the species received its name. But the grain ground beetle loves to thoroughly gnaw the germinating grains of grain crops. This causes terrible damage to the crop, and for this reason it is considered a pest.
Types of longhorned beetles
There are many longhorned beetles, depending on certain characteristics they are combined into groups. Thus, woodcutter beetles that specialize in the destruction of spruce, pine and fir trees include the short-whiskered beetle, the shiny-breasted beetle, the ribbed beetle and the rustic beetle. The second group: large and small ragii, black spruce longhorned beetle, and bronze pine pest. They gnaw the needles, thereby damaging the health of the tree, and then settle into its wood. It is the active activity of pest beetles of the second group that is the most common cause of the extinction of entire areas of forested areas. The third group of longhorned beetles are squeaky beetles. They prefer deciduous trees, including birch, aspen, and willow. These include the greater and lesser squeakers, marbled squeakers, musky barbels, spiny barbels, as well as certain species of sandpipers.
Where can I meet you?
The longhorned beetle can live and reproduce not only in various tree species, but also in shrubs and herbaceous plants. Longhorned females lay their eggs in a crack in tree bark, in depressions on branches, trunks or stems. Moreover, the pests make these cracks and gouges themselves.
Lumberjacks can “visit” you at your dacha, and the forestry industry can “boast” of such guests. In country houses, the objects of pest attack are furniture, boards and other wood products.
What to do if you find a barbel at home?
If a mustachioed pest is found in the house, then an emergency response is necessary. Why? It’s just that if this insect gets into wood, which is the main material of your home, then it will not calm down until it eats it or, as they say, if it doesn’t eat it, it will spoil it, causing significant damage to the building as a whole.
The longhorned beetle is not dangerous to humans, but it can harm him by destroying his home. To ensure that your home doesn’t care about insects, the wood should be treated during the construction stage. There are several ways to protect wood. Fumigation using phosphine gas is considered the most effective and optimal. This method of wood processing is held in high esteem by both owners of wooden buildings and carpenters, who process each unit individually.
A longhorned beetle visited your house and settled in it - a problem whose solution consists of the following actions:
— Assess the degree of damage to the material. To do this, you need to take a screwdriver and try to pierce the tree. If the tool enters easily, then it is impossible to do without eliminating a separate section of the surface of the house or the structure of the wood material (rafters, frames, beams). This is direct evidence that your house, or certain elements of it, is being eaten by a longhorned beetle. See photo of the damaged wooden beam below.
Hard wood can be left, but subjected to special treatment.
— Prepare the structure for the processing process. Clean the surface of the wood using a brush with increased rigidity. In this case, the person involved in this process must have special equipment: a respirator, glasses.
— Remove the dust layer with a vacuum cleaner.
- Coat the wooden surface with insecticide. Irrigate even surfaces, but intensively moisten holes and cracks with the product.
— Close all door and window openings in the room for several hours (usually 34 hours).
— If the wooden surface is open, it must be systematically treated with hot drying oil. It is worth remembering that this option is far from the best, because when processed with such material, the original texture of the material is subject to change.
- Resort to the use of special products that penetrate deeply into the tree and are distinguished by a long period of preservation of their properties: “Antizhuk”, “Empire-20”, “Antishashelin”.
— Treat the tree with antiseptics once every 12 months. It is best to do this in the month of June.
— Treat affected areas of wood with carbon disulfide.
— Expose the affected tree to high temperatures (within 74 degrees). This can be done with a specially designed device, which will not be difficult to find and purchase.
Professional processing
Some processing methods are best left to professionals:
- Fumigation;
- Microwave disinsection.
Each method has its pros and cons.
Fumigation
Treatment of surfaces with chemicals in the form of gases or aerosols (hot, cold or dry fog). Fogging agents are now rarely used. They do not have such high permeability as gas; it is almost impossible to destroy the larvae inside the tree in this way.
Experts use fumigation using gases with phosphides (Phostoxin and Mactoxin). They are produced in tablet form. They decompose when exposed to air and release poisonous phosphine gas. Within a day, the substance can destroy all beetles, larvae and eggs. It will take about 2 days for the gas to decompose.
Advantage of fumigation:
- 100% destruction of all parasites;
- long-term effect after treatment (10 years);
- the ability to process a large area in a short time.
The disadvantage of the method is the high toxicity of the substances.
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Microwave disinsection
If the larvae and eggs are exposed to temperatures exceeding +55°C, they die. Special microwave installations have been created for this purpose. Microwave radiation is directed onto a specific surface, causing the molecules to vibrate and heat up. As a result of this effect, the parasites die. However, such radiation does not harm wood.
Advantages of the method:
- no need to evacuate people from home;
- you can quickly get rid of longhorned beetles;
- effective in all weather conditions;
The negative factor is that the work is painstaking. It is necessary to detect all the places where the parasite lives, this requires some experience. Specialists have special equipment for this – a stethoscope. They bug the house around the perimeter, each nest is treated with a radiator.
Longhorned beetle: how to get rid of it?
Special means of varied action will help you fight barbels in your own home. Which specific product to choose in this or that case is entirely up to you!
Conventionally, such funds can be divided into three groups:
- Contact. They manifest their effect directly upon contact with the longhorned beetle. Such products are not popular because their use can be harmful to human health.
- Intestinal. Such agents include sodium fluoride, zinc chloride and other components that exert their harmful effects on the insect through the intestines.
- Fumigants. These are gaseous and vaporous substances: sulfur dioxide, dichloroethane, etc.
Remember that solid wood, on the surface of which there are no cracks or other defects, is not of interest to pests. The longhorned beetle will live and reproduce only in cracks. Therefore, you can’t go wrong if you pour a special product into the grooves of the wood panel with a syringe, and then cover these holes with wood putty or ordinary plasticine.
Remember that it is very difficult to overcome barbels! It is much easier to resort to preventive methods, for example, using exclusively wood impregnated with fungicides for construction purposes.
Folk remedies and recipes
Proven recipes:
- Mix 250 g of sodium fluoride 2.5% concentration with 10 liters of water. Treat the wood with a spray bottle at the rate of 200 ml of solution per 1 m² of area.
- Prepare a mixture of equal proportions of resin, black carbolic acid and naphthalene. Apply to wood with a brush.
- If wooden furniture is damaged, it can be treated with hot drying oil. But this method can rid the furniture of its decorative appeal.
- Mix kerosene and turpentine (1:3). Treat the tree with Vaseline, then pour the prepared mixture into the beetle holes. Seal the holes with paraffin.
This is interesting!
The longhorned beetle family includes not only annoying wood pests, but also representatives of the Red Book of Russia. One of them is the relict longhorned beetle (woodcutter). Its habitat is the deciduous forest of the Far East. A distinctive feature is the body length, reaching 11 centimeters. Meeting such a beetle is a great success. The titan lumberjack, which has received the status of “the largest beetle on the planet,” and the long-legged harlequin, whose front limbs are longer than the length of the body, also need protection.
Prevention measures
To prevent longhorned beetles from causing damage to your structure, you must:
- carry out a thorough inspection of the wood for the presence of holes made by insects;
- if damage is detected, use special protective equipment;
- keep the room dry, since excessive humidity is one of the favorable living conditions for insects;
- for preventive purposes, wooden surfaces must be periodically treated with special insecticidal agents;
- for construction, use material that is not infected with insects; this is easy to verify when the wood is cleared of bark;
- If wooden structures are heavily infested, they should be replaced with new elements.
By periodically carrying out these simple measures, you can protect your home from pests.
