Today was a first in my cigar world.

As a rule, when I get cigars I inspect them closely before putting them in the freezer. Once in a while I've found minor evidence of beetle damage, but never have I seen an actual, moving bug.

Well, today I opened a box, and was about to start an inspection when I saw something move. It was small, white and reminded me of a mite or a louse. As I started looking more closely I found that they were present on nearly all the cigars. :-) No obvious beetle holes (though the sticks did look a little banged-up). Needless to say I threw the sticks back in the box and stuck the entire contents of the package--boxes and all--in the freezer.

Is there some kind of mite with an affinity for tobacco, or was I seeing beetles at a low stage of development??:-) :-)
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How large where they? And what did they look like? (more like a iconic "bug" or more like a "caterpilliar")
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this is probably a wood louse, wont damage your cigars. They will disappear when the temp drops.
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Might be this:

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar.../top10faq.html

Other bugs you may occasionally run into are wood mites -- small, white insects that are often the result of opening a fresh wooden box of cigars. The good news is that these mites won't harm the cigars, and they don't live long enough to seriously damage your humidor.
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Did they look like the pic in this thread:

http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14843
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These are tobacco beetles -

Left to right:

Pupae, adult, larva (egg stage not shown)

Image

Adult is 2-3mm in length.



If it's not one of them, I don't know if you have anything to worry about or not.
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Okay, I'd say these are wood mites. Tiny crawling things smaller than the head of a pin.

Thanks for the info...another reason this is such a great site!:-)
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Yes, they sound like wood mites. They love the glue on the bands. I had them once on a box of Upmann No. 2's and kept coming back. Took 3 rounds of wiping to get rid of them, but never damaged the cigars.
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Fry 'em up in a little garlic butter!:-)
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It's just plume. :-)
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Damn, that made me feel a hunger pang !:-)
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's awesome... :-)
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Mmmmmm....self-propelled plume. :-)

(Does this mean that plume can be transplanted to other cigars?? AWESOME!!) :-):-):-)
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That sucks
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