Beetles!........ again!
Bob Luken
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So I've got this old beat up 50 count humi that I got at a junk store. My first real humi. I keep various sticks in there. The only common denominator is that none of these have been through my beetle prevention freezing regimen. So I was looking for a stick to smoke on this mild weather evening and I was digging around and Damn! I see sure signs of trouble.
There's this one cigar I got from a ccom brother that has cello except the foot is open. I don't know if it came that way or the previous owner cut it back at the foot. Anyhoo,.....all near the foot it's been eaten on. That stick has been in there half a year or more and I've checked them pretty regularly too. It hasn't even been very warm where I keep this humi. Next I tap the foot and dark dust comes out in good quantity. I start examining all the other sticks. All of which had cello except one. All look fine. (I'm smoking the only non-celloed stick as I type. It seems fine,...... so far.) There's just a little bit of dust in the bottom of the humi and I vacuumed that out and put all the sticks back in. I'm contemplating a freeze job for all these other sticks in that humi but it seems it was isolated to just the one stick so for now I'm not sure I will do that because I want to smoke a bunch of these soon.
One larva crawled right out to greet me. He was the first to die. I cut the cigar open out of curiosity and found four more. It's possible there were more but I was pretty thorough. Did ya' know that sometimes when you squish them they have this dark tobacco colored juice inside. Makes sense.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my hour and a half worth of misery with ya'. Hope it doesn't give you bad dreams. May this never happen to you. Word of advice – Check your sticks often.
Here's some pics if you're not too squeamish.
Sorry the pics aren't in good focus.
There's this one cigar I got from a ccom brother that has cello except the foot is open. I don't know if it came that way or the previous owner cut it back at the foot. Anyhoo,.....all near the foot it's been eaten on. That stick has been in there half a year or more and I've checked them pretty regularly too. It hasn't even been very warm where I keep this humi. Next I tap the foot and dark dust comes out in good quantity. I start examining all the other sticks. All of which had cello except one. All look fine. (I'm smoking the only non-celloed stick as I type. It seems fine,...... so far.) There's just a little bit of dust in the bottom of the humi and I vacuumed that out and put all the sticks back in. I'm contemplating a freeze job for all these other sticks in that humi but it seems it was isolated to just the one stick so for now I'm not sure I will do that because I want to smoke a bunch of these soon.
One larva crawled right out to greet me. He was the first to die. I cut the cigar open out of curiosity and found four more. It's possible there were more but I was pretty thorough. Did ya' know that sometimes when you squish them they have this dark tobacco colored juice inside. Makes sense.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my hour and a half worth of misery with ya'. Hope it doesn't give you bad dreams. May this never happen to you. Word of advice – Check your sticks often.
Here's some pics if you're not too squeamish.
Sorry the pics aren't in good focus.
Comments
But on the other hand, I sure don't want him to feel like he has to "make it right". I take full responsibility. I'm the one who let my temps get high enough without taking the extra measure of freezing. I hadn't really kept close track of the temps in the man cave but I checked this morning in that room and it's 72 degrees. Just warm enough.
I feel lucky in a way. Just like last time, I've apparently caught it pretty early. There's no noticeable damage except that one stick and I've been through this before so it doesn't seem like such a big deal this time. But I guess I should shoot him a PM. Right?
Aj
Sorry bro.