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SHIT! Help Guys!

V

verhoevc

Banned
Joined
Oct 30, 2007
Messages
846
Location
SC
I'm freaking out you guys! I bought a Davidoff from a pretty sketchy smoke shop awhile back earlier this year, and that smokes been sitting in the bottom of my desktop humi for quite awhile now, and I was rearranging my smokes today and went to grab that one to put in a singles box... and noticed holes in the cigar... so I pulled it out and looked around it and there were tons of holes, eaten through on the bottom, and two beetles! Granted they were dead beetles, and the cigar was wrapped in cellophane...
So I've inspected all the cigars that were near that one, etc. etc. and I don't see any others with any symptoms... however this one most DEFINITELY was attacked, and the cellophane at the end was tight and folded under, so they COULD have potentially gotten out (didn't come in cellophane so I put it in a cello that was too short for it but still was SORT of long enough to fold back under).
What should I do?!?!?!
Chris
 
Triple bag the rest of your cigars in freezer ziplock bags. Throw them in the fridge for a day, then into the freezer for 2-3 days, then back in the fridge for a day, and then finally back to your humidor. This should stop any infestation that may have started. You may also want to check the rest of your inventory by holding the cigar upright over a white piece of paper and tapping the cigar gently. This is a good way to tell if a cigar is infested or not even if you don't see any holes. Any cigar where fine black powder drops out of it, is probably beetle infested. Take those and freeze them in a separate bag.
 
Thank god it was in my desktop humidor and not my big boy! I've looked at each cigar twice, once taking out, once putting back in, and isolated any with any possible signs of holes, swarf in the cellophane, anything. Apparently from the above post that's no gaurantee... I don't have the heart to recheck everything by tapping right now... I'll do it tomorrow probably...
I found two of the shitters running around the bottom of the humidor... those are the only two live ones I've found, including in the originally infected Davidoff.
That's good it happened now then I guess, cause I was getting that cigar to put away somewhere "safe" with all my other higher end cigars in the big humidor!
Chris
 
So I dissected that Davidoff (I'm SO pissed, that's my only one too, and never had one so I was keeping that for a nice little celebration) and these things are freaks! The larvae and shit... gross...
But yeah, I'm gunna get to freezing them tomorrow after I hit up the store for some ziplocks... thanks guys.
Chris

My prize smokes have already started the freezing process... only had one ziplock. The others will start it tomorrow when I go to the store.
I can't even imagine doing this kinda smoke saving effort for anything bigger than a desktop :S Hopefully this never happens again, and I've learnt my lesson about buying smokes from a sketchy store...
 
Heh,

Just remember, it is the larva that do the damage. By the time you actually see beetles, the buggers have already eaten their fill and pupated. All that's left for the beetles to do is to get busy and lay eggs all over your smokes.

Wilkey
 
It's at whatever temperature my room's at. Which is in DC in the winter and still airconditioned.
As for the store, it's this hookah/souvenir place on M street.
Chris
 
Too late, I already cut it up to learn more about my enemies... plus, the idea of KNOWING there are live larvae in there that I'm about to smoke isn't so appealing to me...
Chris
 
Devil Doc said:
Try here

Doc.
Click to expand...

Good article but it raises questions. Having done several searches on beetles and freezing cigars and there appears to be some disagreement regarding killing eggs. The article states that freezing will kill them. Many members believe freezing at standard home freezer temperatures will not kill the eggs because home frezers do not get cold enough.

I guess what I am getting at is what is the mechanism for killing eggs by freezing? One possibility is once the temperature is low enough to freeze the water inside the egg, the crystal lattice is formed and the egg case is cracked due to the expansion. This temperature should not be much below the freezing point of water so home freezers should be cold enough.

If there is another mechanism that shows the temperature needs to be much lower I am curious as to what it is.

Ever since I bought a humidor I have been very concerned about beetles because of posts like this and the many articles on the subject. I also freeze every cigar I buy before they ever go into the humidor. I do this because most of the year I can not keep the humidor temperature below 70. Am I being over cautious or am I on the right track in preventing an outbreak.
 
Sounds like the right track to me... I may start doing that with new cigars...
I have another question... should I be freezing my Savoy sponge in my humidor too... would beetles have liked to lay shit in there too?
That'd suck to put my saved cigars back in only to have the humidifying device hatch new beetles.
Chris
PS Boomer: Cellophane seems to be a good protectant as well. I've heard this other places as well, and nowhere in that article does it say beetles can eat through it. So as long as the cellophane is close and folded under well and tight, that could potentially contain beetles coming from that cigar, or protect that cigar from beetles tryna get to it? Anyone wanna weigh in on this more?
 
It did not say if they can get through cellophane in the article, but I believe I have read in other posts that they can chew through it. If the cigars are checked every few days though, it could contain them long enough to find and remove the affected sticks.

Unfortunately for me, I am one of those who takes the cellophane off. IMO the humi looks much better, the cigars stack better, and the aroma when opened is wonderful. No containment though.
 
While I think they probably could eat through cello, I have never seen it and is another good argument for cello on. As for temps, If you can keep your sticks at 72 or below, you are fine. The risk in the 70's is minimal IMO and over 80 degrees is when I would really worry. Every beetle story from my experiences has always been in the 80's. Myself or people I know. My freezer got down to -20 deg and I have not had any more beetles in those particular cigars.
 
They can eat through Cello.......I have seen it with my own eyes.

Also, the humidity is also key in this. I had beetles in a humi where the temp got up to 74% and the hygrometers were off (changed the batteries and it changed calibration) so the humidor was being kept "wet" which I think helped with the hatching......
 
Man sorry to hear that, I live in Texas and my humi stays at 68% and 70!! I keep mine at the bottom of my closet!
 
We know that freezing kills the beatles and larve. So is it yes or no that freezing kills beetle eggs?

Verhovec, sorry to hear about your problem and hope everything is cleared up now.
 
I heard all cigars have beetle eggs in them... just a fact of life, that's where they come from. But you only have to worry about the eggs if the cigars get too hot, that's what activates them... So then does it really matter if the freezer kills them or not... unless they're activated already... and then we get into the idea of activated eggs being different than normal, does it kill those.. etc.
Chris
 
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