I have found what appear to be wasp beetle emerging from my (indoors) firewood pile. This is accompanied by tell-tale piles of sawdust in the woodpile.

Should I be concerned that the larvae may move on from munching the firewood to munching the house timbers? It’s an old cottage, with exposed beams etc. I’ve started burning the firewood asap, but I’m concerned that the entire logpile I have outside may be infected. I don’t want to dump the lot as it’s been seasoning for a few years now, but neither do I want to introduce potentially damaging larvae into my house.

Has anybody else had any experience of these? The interweb seems to be fairly benevolent towards them in terms of ‘ahh, that’s nice. You’ve got some wildlife in your house’. I, however, am not feeling the love towards Mr Bug, atm.

Should I crack him open a beer, or crack him on the head?

Any pics for an id? Sounds like an ichneumon wasp or horntail emerging from your dry logs. They can take up to four years to reach the adult form, then they bore their way out when the temps are good, usually summer., so there may be more in there.

They only lay eggs in live trees, at certain heights, at certain orientations, so I would not worry about them attacking the furniture!

Make sure that they have an easy way outside, as they can chew their way through pretty much anything to reach freedom.

Hi cdoc,

It’s more like this fella to be honest. I’ve google an ichneumon wasp and it’s definitely not one of those.

Ahh, longhorn beetles do pretty much the same, behaviourally. You may find them all hiding somewhere warm, being thoroughly disgruntled that they were fooled into hatching early!

Google tells me that longhorn beetles can do significant damage to buildings. Just wondering whether I need to burn all the remaining logs and evict the tenants?

They don’t look too pleased when they emerge to find it’s still winter!

Burning the firewood seems a bit drastic

The only Longhorn that damage houses are House longhorns. Not yours.

maybe just store it outdoors?

Burning all the firewood in one go does seem a bit drastic, I agree…