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Items in the Warkworth and Districts Museum collection have become infested with borer.
An infestation of borer in a range of large wooden artefacts at the Warkworth & District Museum is being literally frozen out, thanks to advice from Te Papa Museum and a grant from Rodney Local Board.The woodworm were discovered last year in some of the museum’s old kauri slabs, organs and agricultural implement handles. On advice from experts at Te Papa in Wellington, these items were removed from the building and placed in a container and now have to be frozen for up to a week to kill off the wood-munching pests.
Rodney board members agreed last month to a grant of $1570 for the museum, which will enable it to hire a freezer container, plus calico and plastic wrapping to protect the items while the freezing process is carried out.
Warkworth Museum manager Victoria Joule says the grant is very welcome, since they have already had to buy a container and to store all the borer-infested items away from other exhibits.
“That was a couple of thousand dollars,” she says, “And we’re non-profit – we rely on donations and grants, so that was a lot of money for us.”
She says the borer was first discovered just before she began in her role as museum manager four months ago.
“One of our volunteers had already contacted Te Papa national services, which offers regional museum support, and two guys involved in pest control, who were on their way to the clock museum in Whangarei, called in and gave us advice on best practice in August,” she says. “They said we needed to get everything out of the museum before the borer season, which is what we did.”
The second stage is to treat the borer – which, in this case, means freezing all the items to minus 20 degrees for a week. Twice.
“The plan is to do that now and treat the borer. It has to be done, it’s very important to preserve what we have, and it will happen as soon as possible.”
Victoria says the actual timing depends on freezer container availability, which starts to come under increased pressure at this time of year with outdoor events, festivals and so on, but will take place as quickly as is practicable.
The museum also has some minor borer infestation in some of its outside buildings, including the old jail and army huts, but this can apparently be treated with conventional chemical pesticides.
