Are these last year stalks? Any green leaves on them? I usually break off all the dead stalks from last year in early spring and new branches will come up, grow to 8-9 feet and bloom in the fall. Wait and see if you get new stalks from the ground.

i do have new stalks, however, there is rotting in the old stalks. I was getting ready to remove them when i saw what was going on. i bought some bayer termite killer. so i hope it works.

It is natural for wood-eating bugs to eat dead parts of a plant. I agree that you could just break-off the dead parts. I usually do it with my foot, kind of kick them away from the middle. Is there a bunch of leaves or mulch piled around the bottom? If so, you may want to expose the ground-level part of the plant to air and sunlight as well as removing the dead parts.