Independent Record

People whose trees may be bugged by beetles can call a new "bug line" set up to answer questions about the voracious insects.

They also can get help from the Helena National Forest, which is working with the Montana Discovery Foundation and Department of Natural Resources to set up educational forums and make a group purchase of a product shown to repel mountain pine and Douglas fir beetles from tree stands.

Amy Teegarden, spokesperson for the Helena forest, said they're getting 15 to 20 calls every day from people worried that their trees are being killed by the beetles. The insects already have eaten their way through millions of trees in western forests.

"They're concerned that they have bugs or wondering if they do," Teegarden said. "At our last lecture on mountain pine beetles, we had well over 300 people there. We ran out of handouts and order forms."

With that kind of interest, they decided to formalize their effort and called in retired forest silviculturist Jack Kendley to man a hotline to answer questions. In addition, the Helena Forest is putting together a group order for verbenone and methylcyclohex (MCH), synthetic pheromone packets that repel the mountain pine and Douglas fir beetles.

"The big thing right now is the pheromone order is due April 18," Kendley said. "People are curious how they work, how many they should buy and where to put them on the trees.

"They're relatively effective at protecting property, but this is a Band-aid. They're only good for one year and we're not sure how long this will go on."

The DNRC also is getting calls from private landowners, according to D.J. Bakken, Helena unit manager.

"We like to help them over the phone, and hook them up with sources," Bakken said.

Bark beetles are a natural forest resident and provide valuable services in limited numbers by embedding themselves in older trees near the end of their life cycles. Those trees die and provide habitat for other creatures.

But an aging forest and dense tree stands, coupled with years of drought conditions, have allowed six types of beetles to multiply to levels that are cutting huge swaths across the Rocky Mountains.

In fact, a Colorado newspaper recently reported that within three to five years, every large, mature lodgepole pine in that state and southern Wyoming will be dead from the unprecedented number of mountain pine beetles.

The bugs kill in two ways, Kendley said. First, they bore into trees and lay eggs that hatch into larvae and eat the trees, often in a horizontal fashion. This "girdling" of the tree disrupts the flow of nutrients between the branches and the roots, starving the tree.

Some beetles also carry a fungus in their shells that causes disruption in trees' respiratory system, Kendley said, which delivers a second, often fatal blow.

The tell-tale sign of a beetle outbreak are bore holes, where sap runs out and mixes with sawdust left by the beetles. Often, the sawdust also is present in little mounds under a tree.

Kendley said an infected tree usually, but not always, dies.

The pheromone packets work by confusing the beetles, Kendley said.

"When they first start attacking a tree, they have to have enough insects to overwhelm it. So they emit a pheromone, asking other beetles to come attack a tree. As the attack continues, the sap sours and they emit a pheromone that tells other beetles to go away because there are already too many beetles here," Kendley said. "So the pheromone packets emit that second scent, repelling the beetles."

The Forest Service typically recommends 30 to 40 bubble caps of MCH per acre to ward off Douglas fir beetles, and 40 pouches of verbenone per acre to protect against the mountain pine beetle, which infect lodgepole, Ponderosa and white bark pine.

At $8 per packet, Teegarden said they're probably too expensive to tack onto every tree on a person's property. Instead, the Forest Service recommends property owners set up some kind of grid pattern, or chose what trees they want to live and which ones they'll sacrifice. Those topics will be addressed at an April 30 meeting.

"There's a strategy to placing them," Teegarden said, adding that thinning out a tree stand also creates a less hospitable environment for the beetles. "People need to consider what their prize trees are that they don't want to lose."

She said the reason behind the Forest Service's making the group buy on behalf of the public is that it saves the private landowner about $50 in shipping and handling fees. But she adds that they're only buying the requested amount, so property owners need to get their orders in quickly.

Kendley notes that this isn't the first bark beetle epidemic, and probably won't be the last. They'll stick around until one of two things happen, he added -- either they kill all the trees, similar to what happened in Yellowstone in the 1970s, or the region gets sustained periods of below-freezing temperatures.

Open house

The Helena National Forest and Montana Discovery Foundation will host an open house from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. April 30, where foresters and consultants will be available to visit with landowners about identifying insect activity, prevention efforts and mitigation to reduce wildfire risks.

Open house

People who ordered and paid for verbenone and MCH capsules will be able to pick those up at the meeting, which will take place at the Forest Supervisor's office at 2880 Skyway Drive in Helena.

Bug line

The "bug line" number is 495-3755. People should leave message with contact information and typically will be called back within 48 hours.

Reporter Eve Byron: 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com