Maybugs?

This morning I removed another large beetle from daughters bedroom. I think they are Maybugs (

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This is the 6th we've removed from the bedroom in a week (or maybe just the same one that's really keen? :-)).

She isn't a great fan of them being in her room (I've tried telling her they are rare - she seems keen to make them even rarer :) - any idea where the hell they might be coming from?? It's always that one room - never seen one anywhere else in the house. She does have a chimney in the room that has a vent without a grill on. I did find mention of them coming down chimneys - anyone know if that's really likely? Why the hell would they do that?

Yes, I know, I'll fit an fly screen to the vent and see, but I'm struggling to believe that's actually where they are coming from (saying that, I can't see where else so...)

Never had them before - and I've been looking for a roundtuit for 4 years to sort out the vent ;-)

Darren

Reply to
D.M.Chapman
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I have had a smaller size beetle (a brown one of a type I have never seen before or since) come down a disused chimney that did have a fly screen. The racket it made was dreadful, we had to remove the screen and get rid of it.

Maybugs seem to be restricted to particular areas. I live in Sunbury and had never come across them. My son moved to Crowthorne, only about 20 miles away, and they get masses of them at a certain time of year.

Reply to
Tinkerer

I live in NW England and I've never seen one in my life.

If you think they're coming down the chimney, put a gauze behind the vent and see if it works

Reply to
Phil L

"Tinkerer" wrote: [snip]

Never see them in Hampshire but when we lived in Godalming they were at plague levels along with Stag Beetles. May bug grubs seem to like acid soils and orchards.

What HANTS has in abundance, and I've not seen them elsewhere, is the bee fly, Bombylus major. They seem to have a patchy national distribution.

Reply to
Steve Firth

Seen plenty around Kent all my life. Getting hit in the face by one while thrashing a motorbike around a field is particularly memorable. They are hard buggers :-)

Yeah, I'll try it. Can't quite believe they actually come down the chimney though! Why would they??

Saying that, nhm appears to confirm:

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"Melolontha melolontha normally appears flying on warm evenings from May to July. Melolontha melolontha is attracted to artificial light and often comes indoors through open windows or even down chimneys. May bugs may cause consternation to those who encounter them but are harmless to humans"

So, if the natural history museum say so, then I guess it must be valid. I'll put a screen on the vent and see what happens. I expect to find one trapped and tapping on it in the morning :-) I remember as a kid the bloody things tapping on my window in the evening grrrrr

Darren

Reply to
D.M.Chapman

Yep. Absolutely I can confirm that they do. When I was a kid, the house I lived in had a fireplace in the main upstairs bedroom, as well as one in the 'front room' below it. My parents didn't use these two fireplaces, and had them blocked with wallpaper-covered hardboard wedged into the gap (yeah, I know, but times were hard back then ... ) Anyway, every summer for about two weeks, we were invaded by these Maybugs coming down the chimneys in both of those rooms. Then, they used to try to get out, with their horrible little legs scratching at the edges of the hardboard, and poking round and waving about. They used to give me the willies, I can tell you, and I used to dread their arrival every year. We had the council bug man round as I recall, who basically said that they weren't dangerous, or a particular pest, and were just best left alone. I don't recall that we ever actually did anything to get rid of them, but suddenly, I have no further recollection of them, so I guess they must have just stopped picking on our house.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

How random. OK, I guess that sorts the source of the blighters... still can't fathom why they come down chimneys though! She did say a few weeks ago that she had bugs coming out of the chimney.

"yes dear, it was a bad dream. Go back to sleep now" - maybe she wasn't talking rubbish afterall :-)

Hmmm. She is already not all that happy that huge beetles appear in her room every night. I can imagine that hearing them scratching around in the chimney behind the vent isn't going to be all that popular either :-/

Maybe I could stick a load of ant powder or something up behind the vent and hope they die before she wakes up screaming? :-) Sticking something on top of the chimney that stops them getting in is going to be somewhat more effort :-(

Cheers,

Darren

Reply to
D.M.Chapman

You need to train her better. They're actually quite colourful, with smart stripes down the side. Of course getting her to look at one through a decent lens the first time might be tricky. Many girls seems to have an irrational fear of bugs of many types - it's taken me over 25 years to get my wife from "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!" to "can you catch that spider please?"

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

Looking at them is fine - she likes looking at them once trapped in a glass.

I think it's more the idea that these things might be flying around and landing on her while she sleeps. Can't say that idea appeals all that much to me.

I did try the "what makes you think they would want to come near you anyway? they are more likely scared of you!". Didn't really work. She replied with "Why do they come down the chimney then?".

Didn't really have an answer to that :-)

Still can't imagine why they do but it's a regular one a day at the moment. If the bloody thing is there again in the morning I'm marking it with permenant pen to see if it's the same one being very persistent :-)

If it is I'll take the bugger to work and let it out. See if it can travel

20 miles home and still find our chimney (knowing my lunch, it will...)

Darren

Reply to
D.M.Chapman

Yes. And then you might tread on one and it marks the carpet or it dies anyway and you have a corpse. I tend to put all insects out as it's less hassle. Except for a very large hornet which succumbed to my chemical warfare attack.

I also agree with your sentiments regarding having them there while you're asleep. I think Jim (hero of "Lucky Jim") sums it up best. Jim comes home with "much beer distributed about his frame". He wakes up the next morning with his mouth tasting "as if some small creature had used it as a latrine during the night".

Reply to
Tim Streater

They are very stupid. They cannot tell a chimney fro a hole in the ground.

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

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