Welcome to the British summer!
Now not to say we haven’t had some nice days but as of the most part you cannot really call it summer. For us summer means Woodworm season, more specifically known as common furniture beetle or Anobium punctatum for the Latin readers out there.
The reason we call it woodworm season is that the emergence of the adult beetles is between June and July and a couple of weeks either side.
Timbers that the beetle tends to attack are softwoods and European hardwoods. Mainly the sapwood and very rarely the heartwood unless some form of wood rot is present. You will tend to find it around your home in floorboards, loft timbers, old wooden furniture.
The life cycle of wood worm, contrary to what is commonly believed, the holes created by the common furniture beetle are actually emergence (exit) holes and not entry holes. The adult female lays its eggs on the timber usually in cracks in the wood so as to protect the eggs. After hatching the Larva burrows down into the timber these holes cannot be seen by the human eye.
After some time travelling through the timber for approximately 3 years, the larva which can grow up to 6mm in length, pupate into a beetle and then exits the timber. These are the holes that are associated with Common Furniture Beetle. The holes tend to be a clean circular hole 1-2mm in width. With an active infestations of Common Furniture beetle you will get frass, this is the bore dust created by the beetle, a cream-coloured dust that has lemon shaped pellets. When rubbed between the finger it can feel gritty.
During the summer months when the adults are flying you will tend to find deceased ones on window sills inside your home, they are also attracted to white surfaces.
This beetle can be confused with several other wood beetles such as, Wood boring weevil (Pentarthrum huttoni) and Death watch beetle (Xestobium rufovillosum) and others. Which we shall cover in further posts in greater detail.