Powder in my desk

Buy some commercial bug killer _for_furniture_ (finish safe). This should come in a squeeze bottle with a variety of long thin nozzles.

Test it against a non-obvious piece of the finish.

Go round every hole and give it a squirt.

Then keep watching, because you've only seen a fraction of the critters that are in there. Tunneling is done by _larvae_, not adult critters - they're laid in there as eggs, then they tunnel around a lot before emerging and flying off. Usually they break out in spring - if these flight holes are visible now, they've probably flown and gone anyway. You may have other attacks, if these adults decide to lay their own eggs in other pieces.

Check all your other furniture for attack.

Repeat your checks every spring.

If you care, you can try to identify the species from the size and shape of the holes. For some species this is useful to know, because they might be a species that just attacks green (standing) timber. Others (like powder post beetle) are much more troublesome, because the adults will attack and re-infest other pieces of furniture.

if you are in a part of the country where termites are a problem, call a termite place and they ought to be able to put it in a house/garage/room being treated

A friend had this problem with worms eating away at an oak book shelve... he did the plastic drape thing and set off a bug fogger thing under the plastic... repeated it a few hours later and claimed to never had a reoccurrence in the 2 years since.. As always, YMMV, especially since I didn't see this, only was told about it..

I don't have any practical experience with your problem but I would strongly suggest that you remove the desk from your house BEFORE the problem infests the REST of your woodwork. They do tend to migrate.

fwiw, Tom

What happens if one would take such a piece of furniture and give it another coat of finish? I have in mind a finish like poly, not oil. I'm thinking the barrier of the poly resin may keep bugs inside to die. What do you think?

I think any bug that can chew through an inch of wood will have no trouble chewing through a couple of microns of poly resin.

scott

That's better than anything I'd have said ! 8-)

I think a problem most of us have is thinking of various pests having systems like ours, and trying things that would kill small humans, such as the poly to either kill them with fumes or cut of their air supply.. Saw a pest control commercial the other night that said ants can live for days under water!!

Don't know about this one, maybe urban myth, but I've heard about bagging the piece and running a hose from the car exhaust to the bag. CO the little buggers?

Put it in a deep freeze for a week or so? Any moisture in the wood may freeze and cause cracking, though.

R, Tom Q.

I'm thinking that mixing some Permethrin or something with that polyurethane might be an interesting experiment, but it would be an experiment--have no idea what effect it would have on the polyurethane as a finish.