Termites?

[Cory]

I was digging through my block box and on every single piece of bark there were several small white/translucent bugs that resemble tiny little termites.

They didn't appear to be boring into the wood itself, just crawling on the bark. They were localized to the bark - I did not find them anywhere else on the blocks, nor did I find them in the milk crate that holds the blocks.

I don't really know what they were - they looked like termites.

Anyone have similar experiences or know what they are?

I am taking precautions and am in the process of boiling all of my blocks and scraps for 15 minutes, twice.

[caskwith]

They are most likely book lice. Harmless to you and your briar they "farm" micrscopic colonies of molds and fungus to eat. They are very common anywhere with a relative humidity of 60% or more and you probably have plenty living in your house though you wouldn't know unless there is something to cause a population explosion.

We used to have a problem with them in a flat we lived in, easily solved by vacuming up the ones we could see and getting a dehumidifier, when the RH drops below 60% their bodies dry out and they die.

Don't boil your briar! You will do more harm than good and delay the use of it for many months, plus it wouldn't help anyway.

[Cory]

You nailed it on the head! That is exactly what they look like.

Thanks!

EDIT:

This also makes a TON of sense, since the last shipment of briar I received had some sort of mold-like thing on the surface.

[caskwith]

No problem. Like I say don't worry about them unless you start noticing them all over the house or something. They have a particular love for flour/dried spices which was where we had the biggest problem. Once we moved that was solved though