carpenter ants in wood

Need a little advice.

I bought a 1/2 face cord of cherry and hickory maybe 6-8 weeks ago.

I stacked it neatly in my garage on a tarp, which is cinder block with a cement floor.

Its not against the wall, I can access both sides of it

I have noticed some evidence of either termites or ant holes in some of it, but not much really.

I am getting wood ready for a cook on Friday and found them in a piece when I split it. I was able to kill all of them while they scurried around on the cement floor on my patio. I am pretty sure they are carpenter ants not termites.

So now I am worried. The only thing in my garage that is wood is the rafters and underside of the roof, all my walls are cinder block.

I am thinking that what is ever left will just be content to stay munching on the wood pile, since it looks very delicious to me. but I am not a bug

I dont really have any room in the yard to store it, so I dont really want to move the wood

what do you guys think I should do?

I was just going to keep a real good eye on it, if I see them anywhere else then deal with it somehow.

I have never seen one anywhere in the garage or in the wood so far until this one split.

this has always been in the back of my mind since putting firewood in the garage

fweck said:

Generally they like wet wood, and they'll go looking for it.

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this is all dry seasoned wood

I dont have any wet wood around anyplace that I am aware of

DownHomeQue said:

in general not a big deal.. wood is a product of nature.. there will be bugs in and around it.. no real way to stop it... It probly already had the ants in it when you moved it to the garage.. as long as the wood is not turning to dirt(rotting) .. its good to cook with.. a few ants is nothing to worry with IMHO.. others may think differently..

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oh they had to be in the wood from where I got it from.

I am not worried about using for cooking. I just dont want the ants to infest the house

Wampus said:

If you're really worried, moving it is the only real solution.
You COULD spray the ground between the wood stack and the house, but ants and termites will likely tunnel anyway, so that won't really help much. This is why termite control injects the ground around the building foundation because bugs don't usually like light so they tunnel or even BUILD tunnels (termites do this).


Looks like you're in for some sweat soon.


Depending on how big the gap is between the house and stack, you COULD go to a home improvement store and get the "do it yourself termite kit" and apply as directed.

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this is the setup

I have a garage with a cement floor and cinderblock walls.

That is attached to the breezeway, made out of cinderblock and brick. No wood

Then thats attached to the house. Same thing, all cinderblock and brick.

The wood is sitting on a tarp on the cement floor.

The only thing they could possibly get at is the ceiling in the garage. Which is what I am concerned about. I guess I could cover it tightly with a tarp to try to avoid them flying up to the ceiling. I dont know.

I will probably burn through this wood in a few weeks, I am not sure its worth the trouble trying to move it at this point, its already been there for a few months and no sign of them until I spilt that piece of wood.

I dont know what I would do with it, there is no where to put it.

We do already have some carpenter ants around, they are just part of the scenery around here, I have been able to deal with them when they show up with not much trouble.

GARNAAL said:

I'd say - after all they're protein so:

take a glass container and catch all the ants that you can;
brine the ants for 2 days in the fridge with a mix of :

kosher salt,
brown sugar
and 2 shots of Jack Daniels

make sure to close the container well - you don't want drunk ants all over the fridge..

After brining, string the big ones on bamboo skewers for sateh and grill them fast and hot on the BBQ until crispy on the outside.

The little ants you grind up in a food processor with some Mayo, a chopped up Jalapeno, a dash of soy and some Cayenne pepper for the sateh sauce and use the leftovers to make a nice Taco chip dip !

All you need is a cold beer to clean the palate afterwards. :mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

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Nah just eat them as they are. I am a fisherman, I have ingested a lot weirder stuff than is and survived.

MI Smoke said:

I would be more worried about the house :fear:

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thats the whole point of my post!!

hello?? anyone in there???

after looking online I have determined that these are carpenter ants as I suspected.

I chopped up all the wood around the one I found with the ants in it and saw no more of them

What I am going to do is over the next few days, chop all the rest of the wood into splits and if I dont see anymore, not worry about it.

They are real obvious when they are there.

If I do find more, then I will figure out what to do with that wood.