The problem sounds like a housekeeping problem. A couple Of questions: 1) do you put the bones through freezing when you have removed them from the colony? If not you should, using the procedures described on the Museum Pest network site. 2) do you examine them after the freezing process to make sure that all grass and eggs are gone? 3) have you increased housekeeping in your storage facility, including cabinets?
If you follow all of these steps, including thoroughly cleaning specimens, trays, cabinets etc. you should be able to get a handle on the infestation without pesticides. Good luck! They are tenacious. Gretchen Anderson Sent from my iPhone On Aug 25, 2020, at 8:44 PM, Suellen Jacob <suellen.ja...@csulb.edu> wrote: Tonya, My dermestid colony has been defunct about since I discovered the RLHBs - not enough material to keep it running all the time - but at the time I froze my skeletal material for 3+ days, I think. I did not put it through any freeze-thaw-freeze cycles. -Suellen Suellen Jacob Vertebrate Collections Manager Department of Biological Sciences California State University, Long Beach suellen.ja...@csulb.edu (562) 985 - 4883 ________________________________ From: pestlist@googlegroups.com <pestlist@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Haff, Tonya (NCMI, Crace) <tonya.h...@csiro.au> Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2020 4:21 PM To: pestlist@googlegroups.com <pestlist@googlegroups.com> Subject: [PestList] RE: Red-Legged Ham Beetle Eradication CAUTION: This email was sent from an external source. Hi Suellen, I don’t have a solution for you, just a couple of questions and thoughts - how long did you freeze your skeletal material, and did you use a freeze-thaw-freeze cycle? I have read that can help ensure everything, including tenacious eggs, are dead. Your problem is definitely of interest to us because we freeze our dermestid-cleaned skeletons before bringing them into our collection, and although we haven’t had any problems, I definitely don’t want to unwittingly introduce any (and we don’t typically use a freeze-thaw cycle, though perhaps we should start)! Cheers, Tonya --------------------------------------------------------- Dr Tonya Haff Collections Manager Australian National Wildlife Collection National Research Collections Australia, CSIRO Canberra, Australia Phone: (+61) 02 6242 1566 (office) (+61) 0419 569 109 (mobile) I am in Thursdays and Fridays Please call or text my mobile for a fast reponse Monday – Wednesday From: pestlist@googlegroups.com <pestlist@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Suellen Jacob Sent: Wednesday, 26 August 2020 8:07 AM To: pestlist@googlegroups.com Subject: [PestList] Red-Legged Ham Beetle Eradication Hello folks, We’ve had a problem with red-legged ham beetles in our (moderately extensive) mammal teaching collection for years now. They got in by infesting our outdoor dermestid colony and riding in on the cleaned specimens. I was pretty vigilant about freezing skeletal material that came out of the colony, but either I wasn’t vigilant enough, or RLHBs aren’t killed by treatment in a standard chest freezer. In any case, they are horribly tenacious. At various times we have isolated/bagged material, froze material in the -80, multiple treatments of diatomaceous earth. But we can’t bag everything because it’s the teaching collection and gets regular use, and the RLHBs keep showing up again. Has anyone successfully eradicated these critters? If so, how? At this point we are even considering using a nasty pesticide if it will work, especially since the classes that would use the collection are remote right now, so the students are out of harm’s way for a while. -Suellen Suellen Jacob Vertebrate Collections Manager Department of Biological Sciences California State University, Long Beach suellen.ja...@csulb.edu<mailto:suellen.ja...@csulb.edu> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MuseumPests" group. 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