Sorry, no pics. I tossed the dissected stick, and the garbage has already been taken out.
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Question: I've seen beetles chew holes through cello. Can they chew through thicker plastic, like ziploc bags, or even food-saver bags?
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Yes
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I had one in a tubo from a domestic vendor.

If you've yet to see a beetle, rest assured, you probably will at one point if you're not freezing or maintaining your cigars in a cool environment.

I also believe that there is not a vendor out there who has not sold cigars that at one time or another had some beetle issues, so a vendor call-out only serves a limited purpose.
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They can chew through your arm, Man!!!:-)
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Holy crap! If one of those landed on me, I'd poop a chicken.
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A chicken would poop a chicken!!! That thing's the size of a chicken!!!:-)

Seriously, Sorry for changing the nature of this thread!!!
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If one of those landed on me, I would turn on the deep fryer and turn it into a snack :-)
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Protein!:-)
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That's a pretty good study! I've been looking for a study like that for awhile. However, there is at least one flaw in the study and some interesting points. The researchers used a strain of tobacco beetle that has been cultured in the lab for 10 years! That is a lot of time for the stock to essentially become "domesticated." What I mean by that is they could have lost some of their natural defense to cold because there was no pressure to retain these defenses. A 1992 study proposed that all studies should be done on stock obtained from the field within two years. They mention that there is no data on the difference b/t lab strains and wild strains but further study is needed to address this before their methods are adopted. It definitely seems that cold (especially -20C) will kill larvae and adults as well as eggs under their methods.

If I ever see a beetle in my cigars I will definitely freeze them but until then I'll follow the recommendation made by the authors (Imai and Haruda, 2006). I'll make sure my humi doesn't go above 18C. They showed that anything lower than 18C disrupts their life cycle so any eggs already in the cigars will not hatch.

Sucks you had an infestation Tenor! I was lucky enough never to have an infestation last year even though my humi rose over 18C many times last summer. This year the humi goes to the basement. Hopefully you've isolated your bugs and have no more problems!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tenor CS View Post
Question: I've seen beetles chew holes through cello. Can they chew through thicker plastic, like ziploc bags, or even food-saver bags?


I have seen no evidence of this, please cite a source. Cello is a natural plant byproduct and like paper or tobacco can be consumed by Lasioderma serricorne, the tobacco beetle. Books and other paper products are also susceptible, but I never seen any reference to beetles eating any petroleum based products. :-)

Of course there are those beetles with armor teeth who can chew through aluminum tubos, but that is another subject. :-)
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I am fighting a beetle outbreak as we speak - my first. My cigars (the uninfected ones, anyway) just finished three days in the upright freezer in my garage and have moved to my mini refrigerator upstairs before lying at room temperature for a couple of days. I believe I have isolated the problem. I bought a used humidor and electronic humidifier from a guy off CraigsList. I asked him if he had checked his hygrometer for accuracy and he said that he had. He seemed to know a lot about cigars, humidity and humidors so I left the humidifier at his setting and left it alone. All seemed fine - until I discovered beetle larva damage late last week. Then I checked the humidity in the humidor with my digital hygrometer, which I know to be accurate within about 1%. When the hygrometer on the humidor read 70 percent it was in fact 79 percent - prime beetle farming range.

Here are some pictures of my beetle experience. What made these harder to find is that almost all of the damage they did was underneath the cedar wrappers of three Indian Tabac Limited Reserve toros. Had I not pulled out an infested stick to smoke on the way to work last week, they might have been a lot farther along damaging cigars before I discovered them. Here are two of the sticks as they looked when I removed them from the humidor:

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And here is what I found when I removed the cedar sleeves:

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I had seen pictures of bore holes before, but I had never seen a shot where they had eaten large segments of the wrapper itself. Here is a closeup of the holes on the cigar on the right:

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And here are the bore holes on a Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 Churchill they decided to excavate:

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I figured out that these particular beetles (a) love Rocky Patel blends, and (b) don't like maduros.
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Really good point and one I'd like to see clarified one way or the other.

The point Beer Doctor made about studying a lab strain is also really important. Canola oil was developed because some research from France suggested rapeseed oil caused fat infiltration in rat hearts. 15 years later, it became clear that the problem was the lab's rat colony being inbred ... same problems weren't seen in mice, typical Sprague Dawley or Wistar lab rats or other animals. The French lab's inbred rat colony did not behave normally. But by the time that was clarified, Canadian researchers had developed low erucic acid low glucosinolate rapeseed oil, which was subsequently renamed Canola. If it wasn't for that French lab's strangely behaving inbred rats, Canola would never have happened.
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I don't have a source. No pictures and no documented case studies... I though cello was petroleum based... This still doesn't mean they won't chew through a zip lock...
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After reading this thread, I started looking through my humidor and coolers to check for evidence of beeltes. Unfortunately, I found two boxes from one manufacturer that were infested. Looks like I lost about 18 sticks. Everything else is going through the freeze process, but that may take a while.

I have been very careful with temperature and humidity, pretty much right at 65 degrees and 66-68%. I am not exactly sure what I can do to avoid this in the future.
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After reading and posting in this thread I went through all my loose singles and boxes to ensure no infestation. However, I had a nightmare last night where I left my cooler in the sun for a whole day that caused all of my sticks to become infested. I was so glad when I woke up:-)
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We got a 602 at 31 spooner street!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_48oowCVMjU


Really though, sucks about getting a beetle. At least the problem seems to be localized :-)
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About how long does the temperature have to be above 70 to likely activate the beetles ? A day ? A week ? I have my desktop humidors in my office where it gets very warm. I've since moved them to a cooler room, but now I'm paranoid. I've inspected many of them very closely with a flashlight but don't see any signs of beetle infestation (no holes, no crumbs, etc).
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^ I'm curious about this as well.
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Moved all of my humidors to the basement. These threads are always put me on edge.
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