Woodworm is the collective name for various breeds of wood-boring insects. Despite the name suggesting it, woodworm are not actually worms, in fact, they are the larvae of wood-boring beetles. The female beetles lay their eggs on wood, after the eggs hatch the larvae tunnel inside the wood, and ingest the wood in order to survive.
Woodworm in its larvae form spread through the wood in your house h via tunneling but once they have become adult beetles they can actually fly.
Whilst woodworm adult beetles can fly, it is not something they do on a regular basis. As adult woodworm beetles only have three weeks to live, they don’t tend to fly too far. You are more likely to see woodworm crawling on wood or their remnants in holes or in the tunnels they create. It is also quite hard to spot woodworm in flight because they are so small. The most likely time to catch a woodworm beetle in flight is if they fly out of a hole.
Many woodworm insects never actually fly during their lifetime. Our specialist surveyors can recognise this by examining woodworm bodies,f the wing cases are closed they have never flown.
If you think you might need woodworm treatment or would like to learn more about how to spot a woodworm infestation, contact our team of damp specialists at Prokil. We can assess the extent of the problem with a damp survey.
*Select surveys may incur a cost, contact us for more information.