Hello Todd! My protocol for wood borers is to vaccum all frass, dust, and insect detritus before freezing. Then I place the item on a clean sheet of blotter paper, wrap, and freeze for 72 hours. Our freezer gets down to -26 C. What's important is that after freezing I allow the artifact to rest undisturbed for 1-2 weeks. Then I unwrap it, tap it gently all over, and watch for new frass coming out. Any new frass is an indication that the infestation is still active and the treatment (including vaccuming) needs to be repeated. This is the same protocol I follow for other insects, but I find that I commonly need to repeat treatment on wood boring insects 2 or 3 times before they are frass-free. In my understanding and experience, wood borers are well-evolved for handling winter temperatures, but the repeated shock of extreme cold will ultimately prevail. Nicole
Nicole Grabow *she / her / hers* Director of Preventive Conservation Midwest Art Conservation Center 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis / Bde Óta Otúŋwe, MN 55404 (612) 870-3129 www.preserveart.org On Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 12:08:51 PM UTC-5 thol...@artsmia.org wrote: > Hello Pestlist- > > Our normal freezing cycle is "one week" (load in on Mon - load out next > Mon etc). This has always been thinking about moths. We recently > prepared a wooden object for freezing that shows a history of wood boring > insect activity. We are 99.9% sure it is not an active infestation, but > want to get it on the record as having been treated. > > I was curious- > How long do people freeze objects when thinking about wood boring > insects? The wood is 5"-6" inches thick in places. > > Any thoughts people might have would be appreciated. > > Thanks, > Todd > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MuseumPests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/b4f197d1-70fa-447c-848c-8557e02317b5n%40googlegroups.com.
