CATCHING BORER BEETLES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25082, 14 January 1947, Page 8

CATCHING BORER BEETLES

RESEARCH IN AUCKLAND UNUSUAL SEASONAL $ OCCUPATION " "CTie Press ” Special Service AUCKLAND, January 13. One of Auckland’s most unusual seasonal occupations has been pursued in recent weeks by a group of university students, temporarily employed by the timber preservation section of the Plant Diseases Diyision, Mount Albert. They have been catching, sexing, mating, and bottling borer beetles, not in tens or scores, but in thousands. Their work, which can be carried out only at this time of. the year for a period of from six to eight weeks, will furnish, it is hoped, the 30,000 »to 40,000 borer beetles needed by the timber preservation section th.s year for its research into the best means of making sapwood timber immune to borer attack. Borer beetles can be collected only in the December-January period, for it is then that the borer emerges from its sapwood home as a winged beetle to recommence the life cycle of the species. Borer grubs live inside timber, but they can mate and lay their eggs only on the surface. The eggs hatch out in two to three weeks and the larvae eat their way into the interior of the timber, where they live for either three or four years. About November the mature grubs work their way back toward the sur-,a face of the wood, are transformed into * the pupa, or chrysalis stage, arid be- | come beetles within 10 to 14 days. They : then gnaw their way out. Non-feeding Habit of Beetles Of the greatest value to the researchers is the fact that the borer I beetles neither eat nor drink during their life on the timber surface. Thus : no beetles can be poisoned as theM gnaw their way out, and the workers can gather them, put them in separate bottles, sex them and mate them with*’/ 6ut any fear that they will die from' f starvation or thirst. The final step mg this part of the work is to place beetles, five pairs at a time, on blod#J of wood which have been previously treated with poisons under test. .Aj' The work began under the prtaißS plan in 1942, when the scientists able to collect only 2000 beetles. year they hope to expose at least flw treated blocks to borer beetles. Each block is to receive four mated beetles, five pairs being put w. eaeh time. The section thus needs 12,000 female beetles this year. For various reasons, the proportion of males to females caught varies dunnf the season, and it is estimated that the collectors have to gather about 40,ffiHR beetles to make sure of having 12.000 females. The beetles are caught on timber stored in the division’s in - i sectory and from a number of borefr* J infested buildings in the city, certain : church halls yielding a rich harvest | ’The beetles are not agile and make no attempt to escape. The collectors,/] equipped with a bottle and a small brush with which they flip their vk> wl tims into the pottle, require only the patience and enthusiasm belonging to men of science.