I had to have one of my live oaks cut down today. It had been looking sickly since I've owned this house, but it was still alive, so I let it be, even though the trunk was only about a foot and a half from the house. A few days ago, it dropped a huge branch that narrowly missed the house, so I decided it was time for this guy to go.
One of the things I had noticed before about this
tree, and that concerned me that I should probably have it taken down was that there was a hole in the side of it, and part of the
tree was pretty hollowed out.
Anyway, I had the
tree guys cut the
tree up into firewood for me, and I was just stacking the wood when I came across the section that was hollowed out. Inside it, I found this "dirt" with these "worms" in it. Are these some larval stage of a wood destroying organism? I guess they're not termite larvae, but since this
tree was so close to my house, do I need to worry about the roof?
Anyway, here are the critters:
What do you think?
I also saw some weird looking things on the outside of some of these logs, they looked like grasshoppers (long legs) with coloring and markings that looked more like a bee. Any idea what those could have been? If I see any more I will get a picture of them.