Bugs in the green bean stash

[NewToEspresso Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close NewToEspresso]

Was preparing to do a roast this evening and took out a bag (zip lock plastic) of greens which I bought less than 6 months ago (bought less than 2kg which is why it came in a zip lock bag instead of the calico ones). I noticed what looked like chaff in the bag and proceeded to remove it and it squished in my fingers. Turns out it was a bug. Noticed a few more in the bag and its a longish and I believe its a winged variety. Its about the size of a rice grain (long grain rice). After leaving the bag for a while I also saw a larva (looked like a maggot) moving around in it but before I could remove it, it fell into the beans and got lost amongst the beans..

Is it normal to have bugs in with the beans? The bag was zip-locked tight so I dont think it would have come from outside. Ive had beans for 9 months now and never seen a single bug until today... Is this something I should be concerned about?

[Dennis Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dennis]

Re: Bugs in the green bean stash

Eeew!

Sounds like bean weevils. Check for tiny holes in the bag - if you cant find any they may have been inside the beans beforehand. Either way, zip-locked bags only keep out big things. You can also check the beans to look for tiny "drilled" holes though even these may have "healed over".

Bad news is that I think you should throw them out.

[Remy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Remy]

Re: Bugs in the green bean stash

Bad news is that I think you should throw them out.

Naah,... roast the little blighters!  Thatll teach em [smiley=evil.gif]

[NewToEspresso Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close NewToEspresso]

Re: Bugs in the green bean stash

Are bean weevils native or foreign? Where do they come from from inside the house? How do I prevent my other beans from being "infected"?

[Remy Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Remy]

Re: Bugs in the green bean stash

Are bean weevils native or foreign? Where do they come from from inside the house? How do I prevent my other beans from being "infected"?

Well they are present in much of Australian http://www.ento.csiro.au/aicn/name_c/a_915.htm. Are they native to Australia??,.. I think they are.

I had them in a bag of wheat germ once. The bag got pushed to the back of the pantry and had been there forever :. They were well and truly havin a party in that bag. The colony was well established and full of fine web by the time I found it. I could never be certain that some of them hadnt arrived in the bag when I bought it, but the fact that they had not infested anything else in the pantry makes me think they did.

Not sure how you would prevent them from infesting the other beans apart from destroying the colony you have,.. and check the other beans regularly.

[Dimal Mal Find all posts View Profile Close Dimal]

Re: Bugs in the green bean stash

A bit more info on the horrible little buggers here. They are an introduced species which are so endemic in the major population centres of Australia now, that they dont attract the attention of the quarantine service as much as they used to. I guess they just love to set up house in all of the major coffee storage warehouse areas and give the owners headaches (nightmares) on how to keep them at bay :-?.

Mal.

[Andy CoffeeSnobs Owner Find all posts View Profile Close Andy]

Re: Bugs in the green bean stash

I think you should tell your coffee supplier NOW!

In all the time we have been doing this and the 100s of tonnes of green beans we have had go through CS we have never seen a single critter.

Certainly seen where they have been in some samples but always assumed it happened on the tree at coffee origin and not on Aussie soil.  All the brokers we  use work very closely with AQIS so I would be shocked if this happened in CoffeeSnob beans.

Maybe you should keep the beans aside (sealed) and offer them to AQIS so they can determine if the critter is nasty enough to require further action?

PS: Keep bean eating critters away from my stash thanks!