Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Bugs

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Tue 28 Jul 2009 22:37

Change the words

There is a song that some / most will recognise, I have changed the words to "Let's talk about bugs, baby. Let's talk about bugs".

We share our email address and Jim from Bees Knees (our techno advisor) told us our Trojan had come from Nigeria and it robbed our email address. We can only apologise to those who were plagued with emails, apparently from us with 'Fotos' a word we would NEVER use.

Since then a man on the beach in Bequia told us to enter a fictitious email address into our contact list, with the proviso, it had to be FIRST, hopefully that would confuse the hackers as it would bounce back on them. I chose:

a angelic angel @ yahoo. co.uk.

We bought SpyDoctor and added Rapport (a free banking download) that protects your key strokes against those who put sounds to PIN numbers etc and I can add sites that need us to put in passwords.

So for now we are bug free...............................................

Once again we are so sorry to those who got caught and pestered, it was out of our hands.

AT THE SAME TIME.

I noticed tiny chaps appearing in our bed, kitchen and bathroom. At first PANIC, "order the fumigators".

Then I realised they appeared near open windows, they are small enough to arrive on the wind and creep through our mossie nets.

In Martinique, I went on line and looked up the address of the Natural History Museum. Selotaped a few of my chaps to a letter and off they went. The letter was addressed to 'A bug Expert', Department of Entomology.

I didn't honestly hold my breath for an answer, but in the time it took for both our mum's and my Pete and Rita to receive postcards (the only people we send to, as writing postcards is just shy of watching paint dry) we had our answer.

Ignorant of the fact we should have sent a fee, we still got our answer, A HUGE THANK YOU. These are the things in life that restore your faith in the human race.

We will donate as soon as we get to the UK.

We got an informative email and told to hold off the fumigators. Our chaps were quite harmless and friendly, they did not fancy cockroach bait, appeared to besmirch sweet things and we never found them in any foodstuffs. Our chaps seemed to wander from their site of landing. Trot through the boat and really not do too much. We found them all sorts of places. My initial fear was eggs, life-cycle and infestation, this because Bear brought me a cup of tea in bed and I found one wandering on top of the fully sealed biscuit box. ASAP cupboard emptied, no further chaps found, panic over. As it happens these are not full Red Flour Beetles and as all our food is sealed in good quality plastic - that is - bug proof, they are not going to find much to eat.

Trust us to get something with the word 'CONFUSED' in the title.

Meet our new friends - actual size about 4mm

Classification:

Class - Insecta

Order - Coleoptera

Family - Tenebrionidae

Genus - Tribolium Confusum

Species - Confused Flour Beetle

Identification:
The Confused Flour Beetle apparently got its name from confusion with the similar Rust Red Flour Beetle (Tribolium castaneum). Like the Rust Red Flour Beetle, the Confused Flour Beetle is a significant pest of stored food products in mills, stores, food processing plants and homes. The beetle is reddish brown with antennae that gradually thicken into an indistinct club shape with four club segments (the Red Rust Flour Beetle has a prominent three segment club on the end of the antennae). There is a distinct ridge above each eye. The sides of the thorax of the Red Flour Beetle are curved whereas those of the Confused Flour Beetle are more parallel. somewhat straighter. The Confused Flour Beetle does not usually fly.

Size:
Length about 4mm - 4.5mm

Food:
The Confused Flour Beetle is a pest species that attacks stored grain products such as flour, cereals, meal, beans and other dried food products.

Breeding:
The female Confused Flour Beetle lays tiny white eggs. The larvae are slender and creamy yellow to light brown with two small pointed projections on the last body segment. The pupae are white to yellowish, (never seen any of those). The life cycle takes from 40 to 90 days from egg to adult. Adult beetles can live for three years. This was my worry that they could be with us for a very long time. When I could actually face admitting to other cruisers that we had house-mates - everyone chipped in with their own - weevils, beetles, the odd cockroach, ants, geckos - yes geckos - etc etc. It made me fell better but now even more watchful.