I had been air drying about 750 board feet of beautiful silver maple 1 1/2" and 2 1/2" live edge for almost 3 years. This week I noticed a lot of small sawdust piles and my heart sank. I started to breakdown the pile and found it covered in mini sawdust piles along with a swarm of very small flying insects. They have a body and a head, two antennas, about 2-3 mm in length and can fit into a mid size pin hole. See pictures. The heart breaking part is the air drying was perfect, very little warp age or checking.
So I decided to try treting the boards with something. I cannot find Boracare or Boric acid in Ontario Canada so I bought some Borax (Mule 20).
First off, I was surprised to find that Borax does NOT dissolve in water so I fail to understand how it can be sprayed. I am applying with a 3/4 pile roller, I dip the roller immediately after a stir of the bucket to capture as much Borax as possible.
I treated some boards yesterday and set them on a new pile about 50 Ft away. Today there were a few new sawdust piles on the treated boards. I guess the bugs are drilling out and not in. My only hope is as I get deeper into the pile some boards may not be infested but I doubt it.
A big lesson, if I ever do this again I will treat the sawn boards before stickering and stacking them. Foot note, the stickers (pine and spruce) are not infected.
Any advise to salvage? No kiln service will take infected boards so heat is out of the question.
Anyone know how/where I can purchase BoraCare in Canada?
Any suggestion on another remedy or home made solution?