Wood-Destroying Insects: A Guide for Massachusetts Businesses

Wood-destroying insects chew through wood, weakening your property’s structure from the inside out. The damage they cause is often hidden until it’s severe and expensive to fix. Protecting your commercial property means understanding the threats you face.

While this guide focuses on wood-destroyers, remember that other pests also threaten your business. Rodents spread disease and contaminate supplies. Cockroaches trigger allergies and signal unclean conditions. Flies annoy customers and transmit germs. We have detailed guides on these pests, but let’s start with the ones that eat away at your building’s foundation.

Termites: The Silent Destroyers

Are hidden invaders eating your profits? Subterranean termites are the most common and destructive wood-destroying pests in Massachusetts. They live in underground colonies and secretly tunnel into your building to feed on wood.

What They Look Like

Termites are often confused with ants. A key difference is their body shape. Termites have a thick, straight waist, straight antennae, and wings of equal size. Swarming termites, which you might see in spring, are the future kings and queens looking to start a new colony. Seeing them is a sure sign of a nearby infestation.

Signs of an Infestation

• Mud Tubes: Termites build pencil-sized tunnels from soil and wood particles. You can find these tubes running along foundation walls, support piers, or floor joists. They use these tubes to travel from their soil colony to the wood in your building.
• Swarmers: Finding a pile of discarded wings on a windowsill or seeing a swarm of winged insects indoors means a termite colony is mature and active.
• Damaged Wood: Wood eaten by termites sounds hollow when tapped. If you probe the wood with a screwdriver, you might find it is full of tunnels packed with soil and mud.

The Damage They Cause

Termites eat wood from the inside out, leaving a thin layer of wood or paint on the surface. They can weaken floor joists, wall studs, and roof supports. This damage compromises the structural integrity of your building, leading to sagging floors and ceilings. The repairs are costly and can disrupt your business operations for weeks. A termite infestation can go unnoticed for years, allowing the damage to grow extensive.

Carpenter Ants: The Master Excavators

Do you see large black ants inside your building? They might not be looking for crumbs. Carpenter ants tunnel through wood to build their nests, threatening your property’s structural health.

What They Look Like

Carpenter ants are one of the largest ant species in Massachusetts. They are typically black but can also be reddish or a combination of colors. They have a pinched, narrow waist and bent antennae. Winged carpenter ants, like termites, also swarm in the spring to mate. A key difference is that carpenter ants have front wings that are longer than their back wings.

Signs of an Infestation

• Frass: Carpenter ants don’t eat wood. They chew it up and push it out of their nests. This results in piles of coarse, fibrous sawdust, often mixed with insect parts. You might find this material, called frass, in basements, crawl spaces, or under windowsills.
• Faint Noises: In quiet conditions, you might hear a faint rustling or crunching sound coming from inside your walls. This is the sound of the ants chewing through wood to expand their nest.
• Ant Trails: Seeing a steady trail of large ants moving along baseboards or foundation walls is a strong indicator of a nearby nest.

The Damage They Cause

Carpenter ants prefer to nest in wood that has been softened by moisture or decay. Leaky roofs, plumbing problems, and poor ventilation create the perfect environment for them. Their tunnels, called galleries, are smooth and clean, unlike the rough, soil-filled tunnels of termites. Over time, these galleries weaken structural timbers, door frames, and window frames. The longer a colony is active, the more extensive the network of tunnels becomes.

Carpenter Bees: The Perfect Driller

Have you noticed perfectly round holes in the wooden trim of your building? Carpenter bees are likely the culprit. These pests look like bumblebees but cause a different kind of trouble.

What They Look Like

Carpenter bees are large, with a shiny, black, hairless abdomen. Bumblebees, in contrast, have a fuzzy, hairy abdomen with yellow markings. Male carpenter bees are territorial and will hover aggressively near their nests, but they don’t have a stinger. Females can sting but rarely do.

Signs of an Infestation

• Round Holes: The most obvious sign is a perfectly round, half-inch hole drilled into a wooden surface. You’ll often find these on fascia boards, eaves, decks, and window trim.
• Sawdust Stains: Look for a coarse sawdust material on the surface below the entry hole. This is the wood the bee excavated to create its nest.
• Buzzing Sounds: You might hear buzzing or burrowing sounds coming from within the wood where the female is creating her nesting gallery.

The Damage They Cause

A single carpenter bee doesn’t cause significant structural damage. The problem is that they return to the same nesting sites year after year. New generations often expand old tunnels. This repeated nesting activity can lead to extensive networks of galleries that weaken the wood. Woodpeckers also cause secondary damage by drilling into the wood to feed on the bee larvae inside.

Powderpost Beetles: The Wood-to-Dust Pest

Is your antique furniture or hardwood flooring showing tiny holes? Powderpost beetles are small pests that can turn solid wood into a fine, flour-like dust.

What They Look Like

Adult powderpost beetles are small, reddish-brown to black insects. You are unlikely to ever see the adults. The real damage is done by their larvae, which are small, cream-colored grubs that live inside the wood.

Signs of an Infestation

• Exit Holes: The most common sign is small, round “shot holes” on the surface of the wood. These holes are made by the adult beetles when they emerge after completing their life cycle.
• Fine Powder: A fine, talc-like powder, called frass, will fall from these exit holes. The consistency of the powder helps identify the specific type of beetle. If you tap infested wood, this dust will often sprinkle out.
• Weakened Wood: Over time, wood infested by powderpost beetles becomes brittle and crumbles easily. The internal network of tunnels created by the larvae destroys the wood’s integrity.

The Damage They Cause

Powderpost beetles attack hardwoods, such as oak, ash, and hickory. This makes them a threat to flooring, structural timbers, furniture, and decorative trim in your building. An infestation can spread from one piece of wood to another, slowly destroying valuable assets. Because the larvae can live inside wood for years before emerging, an infestation can be well-established before you notice any signs.