Can Ohia Timbers be Used for Construction?

[AlohaSteven]

We originally intended to use ohia posts all along our wrap-around lanai, but then after taking a look at a house located only about a mile away from ours (near Lelani Estates) decided to instead alternate steel-and-concrete columns with ohia posts because of the problem we saw happening to ohia posts in the neighbor's place. Carpenter bees (humongous big things!) have bored holes big enough to stick a finger into through the surfaces of ohia logs and upright column posts on their place. The critters do not stop at the surface, either, but keep on burrowing out a whole deep bunch of tunnels in the wood -like hyperactive winged termites on steroids.

Our contractor says they attack the places where branches were cut off but have a tough time boring in crosswise to ohio woodgrain, and so to seal those branch cuts with some kind of chemical or sealant, but I dunno. We like the aesthetics of the ohia posts and have them ready to hand from when the road was put in, so will use them decoratively for every other post, but the real strength will be coming from the steel-and-concrete uprights. This way if carpenter bees turn the ohia posts into wooden Swiss cheese like over at the neighbor's place then we will just pull 'em out without a structural problem resulting.

Here is a look at these things:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=f1c&resnum=1&q=carpenter%20bees&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi



)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

A pleasant slideshow: http://www.thejoymovie.com

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(