Interesting- It will be interesting to hear peoples thoughts on this one. Just to clarify regarding the escaped beetles, are the objects bagged/wrapped while in the freezer?
-Todd On Thu, Dec 6, 2018 at 9:42 AM a.isa14022 <a.isa14...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear all, > > I hope you can help me because I'm going crazy here. > I've been putting wood and gourd items into my commercial freezer, which > goes down to -29°C and leaving them there for a month after detecting > biscuit beetles (because nothing less seemed to do much - forget 3 days or > a week). I have a data logger in there, so I know the temperature is > definitely down there. The items go in from room temperature straight into > -29°C because we keep the freezer on all the time It takes a datalogger > wrapped in a bag as if it were an object less than 30mins to drop down to > -29°C. Recently, I started having to put in objects that I had treated > earlier this year apart from others as well. I've put in 37 objects since > the 19th of September and still counting. > > I noticed two days ago that there were biscuit beetles all around the > rubber seals of my freezer, on the *outside*. When I brushed them off > onto the ground, not a minute or two passed before they started waking up > and moving. I have no funds or access to anoxia or heat treatments in my > institution or out. All I have is the freezer, and now that doesn't seem to > be working at all except for making the adults literally escape from the > objects and squeeze themselves out through the rubber seals, after which > I'm literally having to step on them to make sure they're dead. I still > can't believe it. It seems the juveniles do get killed though, because I > have been able to shake dead ones out of objects before. > > Other than having to buy lock & lock boxes and seal everything up > individually after a time in the freezer, I don't know what else to do. I > was trying to avoid chemicals at all costs, but if my employer (the State) > refuses to buy more boxes, I will have to find something or risk losing the > whole wooden and gourd collection (It's not that large). There is no such > thing as reasoning with my employer, by the way. I have some thymol which I > bought a couple years ago for absolute, last-minute measures, but I just > don't know since I've heard about surface changes after thymol treatments > plus the well-known contentious issues about health hazards. > > If I should be allowed to call in a professional fumigation service, would > this be all right? Permethrins and all that? I don't have extraction, by > the way. I don't even have a lab. We just have an office and the storage > areas. I've experimented with putting isopropanol in with an object in a > little jar to try and slowly gas them. I know it kills woodlouse, at least, > for sure. I had to do a small, rather sad test with an unfortunate > straggler. I just can't tell if it worked on this wooden stick I tried > since it was too long for the freezer because there's so much frass inside > it that I can't get out that it's hard to tell if it really worked although > I did shake out several dead juveniles. > > I'm trying to be conservation conscious, humane, safe, and practical all > at the same time, but I'm afraid something will have to give somewhere > given my resources and circumstances. I really don't want to give up any of > these things, though. > > Sorry for the super long e-mail, but I've tried to give as many details as > I have at the moment. Any suggestions or help would be very, very, very > much appreciated!!! > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Museumpests" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to pestlist@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/00811bde-990f-4ce3-b2cf-664f841502eb%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/00811bde-990f-4ce3-b2cf-664f841502eb%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Museumpests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pestlist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to pestlist@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/pestlist. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pestlist/CAMxAh%2Bgqi-0tq1G4s-g%3DDqeo_5oiPkYaYqBhT%2BHZ7PXa_5ViVg%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
