Large black Beetles

When we lived in the Middle East weevils in the flour were just a fact of life. Like you we tended to get bored with sieving them out after a while.

Similarly we fished out anything that floated when we boiled the rice but anything that sank just got included in the meal.

Reply to
usenet
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And I heard of someone getting jellyfish in his wetsuit...

Reply to
PC Paul

Quite.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

I heard about the new genetic engineering they are carrying out on jellyfish. Seemingly it makes them set after an hour in cold salt water. :-)

Reply to
BigWallop

Mary, you're a genius. I gave it a whim-wham and my DuckDo now does. Much appreciated. :-)

Reply to
BigWallop

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Wait for next May and I'll post you a bagful!

They're pretty common and extend as far North as Derby (IMHE), if not further. The awkward species, the one that will lay in dry timber not just green, is only found in Kent and Essex. Now those would worry me, but I know mine just aren't interested in laying in anything felled more than a year ago.

I find them in oak sapwood. 1/4" oval tunnels, and enough damage in one layer to make the whole bark come off in a sheet. However they barely touch the heartwood - too much tannin. Oddly they also like to burrow _below_ the cambium, which I'd have thought was the tastiest part. I've had some bark split off where there's "two storey beetle housing" - longhorns below and other smaller borers following the cambium layer.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

"Mary Fisher" wrote in news:42d63c2e$0$28625$ snipped-for-privacy@master.news.zetnet.net:

Yes - bleary eyed, half asleep in the middle of the night. Definitely not what I want to see.

Are they more common in kitchens? That's where ours was.

Reply to
Rod

I might hold you to that - if I remember and am still around.

Yes, multiple occupancy isn't limited to humans ...

After I hit send I realised that I DID see a longhorn, about twenty years ago, in Warwickshire. A lovely creature. An adolscent son who was with my (hence the dating) was impressed.

Now that took some doing!

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Is your kitchen in your house?

If so, no.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

"Mary Fisher" wrote in news:42d6cb5f$0$28623$ snipped-for-privacy@master.news.zetnet.net:

Yes - pretty standard kitchen-like location - inside the house, in fact just inside the back door.

So chances of finding one indoors at all = low. and, of the rooms to find one in, kitchen approx. = bathroom?

Hence dislike of idea of finding one in bathroom is as well-founded as a similar feeling that others may have about the kitchen?

Both rooms had windows open.

Reply to
Rod

Two.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Oh, like ours then. There's a coincidence.

Fairly. I've never seen one in our house, wherethe doors are more often than not open and the garden is well populated with them. The house is more of a menagerie than a human dwelling, come to think of it.

If your bathroom is on the first floor, like ours, I'd say there was less chance of finding a black beetle in it than in the kitchen.

But I insist that they're no problem. Get a bit of paper and see if you can get it to walk onto it - or do the glass over card thing. Then let it go out of the window.

Look, knowledge is power. The more you learn about things the sooner you'll lose your fear. If you have children encourage them to look at the beetles before you throw them out. The beetles, I mean.

Or the children ...

Black beetles are no problem in the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, diningroom, sitting room,workshop, garage, shed, loft, nursery, wetroom - I can't think of any other.

They usually keep their feet on the ground - but that might be vertical ground of course ...

They really are no problem. Why not get a magnifying glass and see how beautiful they are - if you can get one to stay still for long enough.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

"Mary Fisher" wrote in news:42d6d372$0$28626$ snipped-for-privacy@master.news.zetnet.net:

Thing is, Mary, I was writing about Horntails (not black beetles)!

And I might get my Aldi-special USB microscope out if anything will stay still enough... :-)

Reply to
Rod

Sorry! You must admit that this (and the wap) thread have become a tad confusing ...

Good. I should have got one ... I gave my old fashioned one to adaughterto examine her sheep droppings for worms or orf or something ...

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

John wrote in news:lalaw44-E4483E.09300614072005 @ucsnew1.ncl.ac.uk:

Oh, yes; you smoked it!

(How am I going to get the cur-tailed gag in?)

Preserved Killick

Reply to
mike ring

If I eat 2 pizas plius 2 cabsov next morning I have a distended belly.

I think my problem is wheat intolerreance.

Reply to
madmax

There's no wheat in green slugs.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

As Shirley Conran said in one of her cookbooks, "Life's too short to stuff a slug"

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Oh, I thought it was mushrooms...

You learn something every day here :-)

Mary

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Reply to
Mary Fisher

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