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A few weeks ago I collected and dried some purple podded peas and some crimson flowered broad beans. I packaged them all up in re-cycled envelopes.
It was only today that I was going through my seeds when I noticed one of the envelopes had a window on it and I could see the beans inside..... but they had company!!!I spent the time this afternoon emptying out all these envelopes to find that some small round,black beetles had burrowed their way out of some of the beans, there were quite a few holes about 2mm round. When I released them from the envelopes some of them flew off. I know that peas suffer from pea moth weevils, but I have no idea what these are. I sorted through the rest of the beans and discarded any damaged beans and have stored the rest in a glass jar. I will keep these under observation for the next few months.
posted by Matron @ 6:19 PM
7 Comments:
Broad bean seed beetle :(
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1200/broad_bean_beetle.asp
They look pretty stored in the jar like that. Good idea.
No idea what they are, but if the beans are really dry you can pop them in the freezer for a few days to kill off any nasties. At least then they won't eat your beans.
They'd have to be dry though or you'll kill beans too (not a problem if you've dried them to eat but obviously not good if you're planning to sow them next year).
Easiest way to dry is to pop some uncooked rice in the oven for maybe 30 minutes, let it cool then put your beans and rice in a jar together and seal for a few weeks. The rice will leach any remaining water out of the beans.
Muppet - thank you. I looked at the RHS link, that is definitely what the holes look like.
Anna - that's a great idea, I'll pop them in the freezer for a short while to kill the nasties.
Update... beans and jar are in the freezer overnight!
I had a similar problem on my stored pea seeds and having read up, sorry I can't remember where, it said to put in the freezer for 3 days to kill of the boring insects.
I don't think I had the same bug as you matron, it bored out as a grub and it didn't get time to change into what it would become so not sure what it was.
One of the TV gardening presenters down here in Australia recommends that you should store your seeds in a resealable air tight container in the fridge.
A pinch of sulphur in the container will stop any bugs and fungi.
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