A STRANGE KIND OF LIFE IN MY DESKTOP HUMIDOR. HELP NEEDED!

[rafa]

From December there are a lot of very little bugs in my desktop humidor.They are white and very very little ( 1/8 mm).They are around the humidification system (sponge) or running over the top cigars, i think they don't like the bottom of humidor.I kill they with my finger but in 2-3 days there are dozens of them in the same places. I have frozen cigars and humidor, but in few days they are alive again. They aren't Lasioderma Serricome (sadly i know it).There aren't damage in cigars,no holes,no tunnels, and the taste of cigars is good...

I would like to know if somebody knows what kind of living **** are they , and how i can exterminate they.Thanks in advance.

[Vinny]

I once read something about these small bugs... I heard they don't do any arm to the cigars, they are usually feeding with books (paper in general). I will tell you more when I'm back home, I have an article on them.

But you should not worry for your cigars. Maybe you should just try to "clean" every cigar one by one, and then use your vacum cleaner to clean out the humi.

Tell you more later..

[Colt45]

Rafa, I don't have personal experience with these bugs, but from articles I've read, it sounds like they

might be wood mites. They need moisture to survive, and supposedly pose no danger to your cigars.

If you can, perhaps remove your cigars and humidifier, and give the humidor a cleaning -

maybe a vacuum as suggested by Vinny.

Good luck.

[CIGARHead]

Rafa.

Ive had these crawling in some boxes. I was told they are glue mites. No threat to your cigars.

I like to let a few crawl on the foot of my gar and lite 'em up;-)

[Ryan]

They sound like wood mites, I've had them before and while they don't seem to damage the cigars they truly are annoying little b*****ds.

I got rid of them by freezing my stock, at the time I had nowhere near the number of cigars I do now, so freezing would not be as simple, also it's a little extreme for wood mites.

If you do go the freezing route, wipe down the inside of all your humidors and then vacuum them out thoroughly with a crevice tool on the vacuum before putting your cigars back in, clean/change your humidification devices too.

I have heard they are attracted to moisture and your post seems to back this up. What I have done since I got my outbreak is I have wrapped a couple of jars of acryl-polymer gel in my humidors (humi-beads would do too) in double sided sticky tape, folding single-sided tape down the centre with the sticky side out will do too.

This acts as a trap for the mites since they crawl up the sides to get to the moisture in the jars.

To be homest I don't know if this trap works but I haven't seen a wood mite anywhere in my humidors since.

Good luck, I hope this helps.

[Jay Hemingway]

it would be great to find out they eat tobacco beetles!

i would throw a few in my humi's and they would act like security gaurds. lol

i mean they don't bother your garz and all they want is mositure.

:-P

[El Presidente]

I have encountered these before.

They appear to find the moist surroundings of a box of cigars very enticing (puro rainforest). They do no damage and appear to feed on glue used in making the cigar box. We have had boxes arrive with these in the past and set the boxes aside to ensure they weren't beetles. A few days at under 17 degrees celsius and they appear to pack up and leave.

[Trevor2118]

» We have had boxes arrive with these in the past and set the boxes aside to ensure they weren't beetles. A few days at under 17 degrees Celsius and they appear to pack up and leave.

Another good reason for keeping the cigars stored at 16 deg C or 61 deg F (does this sound familiar? ;-) )