Latest Woodboring beetles Stories

By Daly, Pete WALKER - Bernie Kamps is well aware of the battle with the emerald ash borer. Starting in August and continuing through October, the U.S. Forest Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has been releasing thousands of tiny Chinese wasps in Michigan that will feed on the emerald ash borer (EAB). "I have high hopes for that little wasp," said Kamps, founder and owner of Kamps Pallets, a $60 million company doing business in three states with 500 employees....

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A pest blamed for killing millions of trees across the Midwest has reached Illinois, prompting state officials to prepare a detection and eradication plan they expect to begin within the next few weeks, the state agriculture department said Tuesday.The emerald ash borer, which feeds on the leaves and wood of ash trees, was found recently by a homeowner in a rural subdivision near Lily Lake, about 40 miles west of Chicago in central Kane County, said Warren Goetsch, division...

GRANGEVILLE, Idaho -- Northwest loggers are worried British Columbia may be forced to harvest as much as 21 million acres of forests to stop the mountain pine beetle, flooding the market and driving down timber prices.The infected forests in British Columbia make up an area roughly 40 percent the size of Idaho. To combat the beetles, the province is increasing allowable timber cuts 78 percent; big trouble for mills throughout the Northwest."They're going to bury us in the sand,"...

A new study shows that while we're winning isolated battles, we could well lose the war to prevent the devastating spread of the emerald ash borer in eastern Canada and the United States. It's a failure that would cost billions of dollars in lost timber and ornamental trees, and dramatically change the forest and neighbourhood landscape in eastern North America "“ with even more impact than Dutch elm disease. The soon-to-be published study is the first to document the invasive beetle's rate...

VAIL, Colo. -- The mountain views along Red Stone Road suggest early autumn, with splashes of red, orange and rusty brown dotting the green hillsides above the homes and condominiums of this Colorado resort town. But this is summer and the colors represent dead pine needles on hundreds of pine trees that have been killed by beetles.The tree mortality rate around Vail is striking, but it's even worse in other parts of the West. According to U.S. Forest Service figures compiled for The...

BOSTON -- A species of beetle never before seen in North America has been discovered in a Massachusetts forest, but the Asian insect does not appear to pose an ecological threat, experts said Monday. Twenty-two beetles belonging to the Xyleborus seriatus species of ambrosia beetle were found in April in traps set by state forestry workers in Southborough, about 25 miles west of Boston. Two or three more were trapped in nearby Stow. The insects were sent to Cornell University to be studied....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- State and federal agriculture officials on Wednesday warned that destructive Asian beetles have been found near a Sacramento warehouse and dispatched federal firefighters to climb nearby trees to search for traces of the insects. Officials believe at least three Asian longhorned beetles arrived last month as stowaways in wooden crates along with a shipment of tiles from China. Two of the beetles were found outside a privately operated warehouse at the former...

University of Nevada, Reno scientists have ended a decade-long controversy over the process by which bark beetles make pheromones: they manufacture their own monoterpenes "“ the fragrant substances plants produce and which are often used in perfumes. It had been thought that insects and other animals were incapable of making these substances. "The goal of our research is ultimately to control pheromone production," said Gary Blomquist, professor and chair of biochemistry and...