Immortal wood-eating beetles

Q: A year ago, we purchased a Korean-styled dark piece of furniture. A few months ago, we noticed small holes surrounded by sawdust appearing on the top surface of the furniture. We have tried a variety of insecticides to get rid of the invisible pests, but they keep returning.

A: There are several beetles whose larvae could be the culprit, but they all damage wood in similar ways. The adult lay eggs in protected places. The eggs hatch into larvae, the larvae enter the wood and start boring, consuming some of the wood as they go along; the larvae then turn into pupae, the pupae hatch into adults and they go looking for a crack or crevice to start things all over.
Damage to the wood is slow, so you have time to decide what to do. Most insecticides will kill adult beetles, but they don’t soak in enough to kill the boring larvae. Fumigation, super-cooling or super-heating might be appropriate for valuable furniture or picture frames, but would be too costly for ordinary wood pieces. Fortunately, the dry air produced by our heating and cooling systems will cause a population of boring insects to slowly die out from desiccation over a period of several months. More information: bit.ly/GAborebeet.