carpenter aunts living in a samll Osage tree

[bassman211]

My friend wants to learn to make bows, so he cut some nice Blue Beech, Hop Hornbeam, and smaller straight Osage trees, and gave them to me to prep. One Osage tree appeared to be dead to me, so I cut it to length, and split it in half. A lot of ants were nesting in the center of the tree. I dropped the staves on a concrete floor to get rid of the ants, and noticed wings on a few them. Near as I can figure with researching it on line they are carpenter ants. With in their colonies their are workers, Drones, and the Queen. I reduced one stave to floor tiller,and it appears that it will make a bendy handle backed bow. Time will tell. This is the 3rd tree I have found ant nests in the middle of the tree.

[BowEd]

Occasionally I see that here too with my osage.I just remove wood till it looks good.

[Pat B]

 If your aunt is a carpenter maybe she can make a bow too. 
Carpenter ants eat or use rotten wood to make their nests. The other wood should be just fine, especially with osage.

[Hamish]

 

[bassman211]

My mother used to call my brothers, and myself Drones.

[Gimlis Ghost]

I had to cut down a large Silver maple tree that had been planted in the front yard when I was a baby.
I found straight lines of very neat holes about the size of a .22 bullet low down on the trunk. The tree was dead as disco , the wood dry and though mostly solid it was partly dry rotted punk.
Plenty of ants and ant eggs inside near the base and down into the roots.

Besides ants we have a very industrious large bumble bee that mainly attacks lumber. Haven't see one drilling into a tree yet. I noticed several neatly drilled holes about 5/8" or larger in the roof beams of my porch. One of these bees crawled out and took flight while I was looking at the hole. They cut into the 2X6s on the underside and appear to tunnel deeply along the beam.

[bassman211]

Carpenter bees, or wood boring bees resemble bumble bees.  They have holes all over my back, and front porch. I combat them with a tennis racket, and spray WD 40 in their holes. I have a grand son who loves to wack them with a tennis racket.

[BowEd]

I use carpenter bee traps to get rid of them.They are industrious busy bees that put multiple holes all over the place during the warm weather.I live in a log sided house.No holes anywhere any more.Let the trap do the work.
There's many versions of these.This is just mine.
Made from scraps of wood laying around and a couple of plastic bottles.Short section of rubber hose connects the 2 necks of the plastic bottles.

Bees are looking to go into a hole to lay eggs.1/2" holes are drilled at a 45 degree angle upward into sides of box.They find these holes on this trap and go in never finding a way back out.They get tired trying and fall into the plastic bottle and die.
I empty out dozens from each trap on each corner of the house every year.
Those carpenter ants I kill with raid if the log gets close to the house while splitting the log.

[bassman211]

Thanks Ed . I am going to give your traps a shot this summer.

[M2A]

Had some of a locust tree in a fence row fall a few years ago. Tree had 3 trunks and 2 fell and it was all alive until then. Took a chance and tried to get a few staves from the stuff. Found out carpenter ants helped to weaken the tree. I have no proof but I think its some of the hardest locust I have cut and split. Only made one bow from it but hope to get back to some more dried staves soon. My theory is that the tree developed more dense wood as a defense from the damage. The close to the ant damage the better the wood is. Only a theory. Not sure how much solid wood is in that 3rd trunk, so still waiting for the wind to bring it down instead of cutting it, not worth the risk for maybe 2 staves.
The winged ants are the new queens the colony is raising.
Mike             

[bassman211]

Yes, and the drones also have wings. This Osage tree dry cracked at the ends, and through all the knots clean to the other end. I cut through the sap wood deep into the heart wood to see if I could chase the cracks out. I still see small  cracks at the knots. Best I could do with this wood is to mend the knots. and build a bend through the handle bow, and sinew back it, or maybe better yet shit can it. He has  another nice small log of good Osage that should yield a couple nice bows.