A few days ago, biscuit beetles were found on some of our herbarium sheets. We found a mixture of live and dead beetles and their frass on a folder filled with Jerusalem Artichoke sheets. The sheets were from the Leo Grindon Cultivated collection and had been moved back and forth out of the herbarium as they were being used to promote the Museum’s new allotment. The opportunistic biscuit beetles must have hopped a ride on the sheets as they were travelling.
Biscuit beetles, also known as Drugstore beetles (Stegobium paniceum) are insects that feed on a variety of household items such as spices, flour, prescription drugs, paper and leather. They are also, unfortunately, common museum pests.
the wily biscuit beetle. (yes I am anthropmorphizing just a bit)
This morning I checked the Helianthus soldander box that the Jerusalem Artichoke had come from and it turned out there were more beetles in there.
pest damage
The strange thing was that all the beetles in the solander box and most of them on the folder were dead. It is possible that the infestations are a combination of past occurences in which the beetles were fumigated and new beetles that have found a way in. Regardless, it’s ALL being frozen. I’m not taking chances. Further live ones were found in our pest traps. Lindsey suggested I check the rest of the Compositae as she knew pests seemed to like that family of plants.
Lindsey was right. They do like compositae.
Preventive conservator Abigail Stevens and I are now checking the whole cabinet and bagging up the boxes and sheets for deep freezing. We have a big job ahead of us!
I hope you’ll be able to get rid of the beasties without much trouble.
Thank you for this blog, it’s a fascinating insight into what’s going on behind the scenes of a museum.
Thanks for reading!
And yeah I will be working on getting rid of them for the next few weeks.
I think of those as flour beetles; have found them in bags of flour and boxes of cornflakes before now.
They are slightly different. Flour beetles are bigger and easier to spot. There was an episode of Mythbusters where they were testing levels of radiation on these types of beetles. The cockroaches succumbed to the highest level of radiation and the flour beetles were fine!
So that thing about the only things to survive a nuclear winter being cockroaches and Cher is wrong then? LOL
Biscuit beetles, Cher and Keith Richards.
Great article! Will be on the look out for these little buggers.
They’re very tiny so keep a sharp eye out.