Prevention of Pine Bark Beetle
An important part in preventing infestations of the beetle is to keep your pines healthy. The beetle can only pose a threat to stressed trees. Trees can be stressed by factors such as drought, lightning, wind, fire, lack of growing space, pollution, construction or other insect or disease problems.
It is important to thin pine stands when trees are becoming crowded and suppressed. This will give trees the necessary space to grow in a healthy fashion. If thinning is performed, anything larger than 2 inches must be either removed from the site, burned, debarked, chipped or covered and
sealed with a tarp (PDF).
It is important to get potential breeding sites abated from the site to help keep the beetle out of the stand. The best time to do the thinning is in the winter. Obviously, the beetles aren’t active during this time. The most risky time to do it is from April through September. Pheromone traps can also be effective tools in limiting the numbers of beetles in a given stand. They trap beetles by emitting a special scent that attracts the beetles to the trap.