Infested bird seed

[Nicos]

Just thought I'd share today's experience with you!

We decided to start feeding the birds in the garden again with seeds bought back in the winter in a HUGE box.
...went to pour out the seeds to find them infested with grain weevils...THOUSANDS of them
Some ( ie hundreds ) had decided to go for a wander outside the box too.
The place was heaving with them

Here's what they look like...
http://www.agricomseeds.net/images/plagas/big/35.jpg

Yuk Yuk Yuk...

So folks....a word of warning...if you do buy grain for the birds, store it outside of the house and in a sealed container...and maybe don't buy so much in bulk as we did just to save money.

Itch itch.....

[KayJay]

yuk indeed. weevils are not nice critters. do they themselves not get eaten by birds? or are they too nasty even for the birds!

[Nicos]

Probably do...but they certainly weren't being eaten by birds whilst in the seed box inside the house!

[Finedon.Dandy]

scratch scratch!!

[Headfry]

I had loads of bug things in a big box of bird seed too! a lot of the seed had turned kinda powdery too. Most angry. Been feeding birds all year, they have been eating it too!

[Nicos]

Sounds like the same thing!
Oh...... look, it's your 2,000 post!!!!

[biskit]

I stored a big box in my kitchen last year. My walls & worktops were covered daily with insects. At the time i thought it was due to the farm near me & carried on hoovering the invaders up. It wasnt till weeks later i noticed them congregating in one area so investigated further. I found my jumbo box of bird seed swarming with them. Needless to say i learned a valuable lesson.

[Nicos]

It's Yuk isn't it???

We were painting the morning room where we were storing the bird seed and moved everything to the dining room.
It didn't get put back into the morning room as we decided to decorate the whole of the inside of the house....10 weeks later we moved the box of seed so as to feed the birds and noticed about 1000 grain weevils under the box..I'm suprised the box hadn't gone for a grand tour of the house!!! Needless to say they've got elsewhere too and it's a big job squishing them daily!

All to help the wild life eh????

[Snadger]

Just a wild birds version of 'Meat and two veg' Lol

[BarleySugar]

I bought some organic sprouting seed one year (for human consumption). Black weevils hatched out in the cupboard and got into everything that wasn't in plastic containers. The supplier was very generous and gave me a cheque to cover the cost of everything I'd lost. It's a long time ago now, so can't remember the variety or the company.