bugs in the beans

[habitat_gardener]

I looked at the jar of beans I harvested in 2010 and saw little black things among the beans. And then I looked at some half-runners I harvested this year, and similar bugs were in those, too. So far I don't have bugs in the other beans I harvested last year.

If you save your beans to replant, or you grow shell beans, how do you prevent bugs from hatching in them? Is it enough to put the containers in the freezer for a few days? Do I need to put a desiccant in the jar for a few days before putting them in the freezer? If so, where do you get the desiccant?

[rockhound]

I get my bean seed dry and add a teaspoon of baking soda to the container, seems to kill any vermin. It doesn't stick to the seeds so it's easy to sieve it out in spring.

[Tormato]

48 Hours in the freezer will kill the bugs.

Jack Cates

[Zeedman]

Ditto on the freezing, but make sure the beans are dried to a low moisture content first. In my climate, that's easy... I just leave them on trays until December, when the indoor humidity gets really low. In dry climates - like parts of SoCal - drying in the open air for several weeks should suffice. In more humid areas, dry in a jar using desiccant.

You can test bean seed for proper dryness using the shatter test. Place a seed on a hard surface, and hit it with a hammer (use eye protection!). If it shatters, it is dry enough to freeze, or to place in sealed storage. If it just flattens or the pieces hold together, the seed still needs more drying.

I should note that the recommended temperature to kill the bugs & eggs is 0 degrees, which can be reached by most stand-alone freezers. It might not be attainable by the ice box on top of the fridge.

Weevils are the worst in warm climates... I feel for ya, HG.

[peebee]

Zeedman, I'm new to bean saving, and I froze mine in a ziploc freezer bag before I saw your post about making sure the beans are really dry...GULP. I did not do that. Plus, I forgot to take the beans out after 48 hours, and they are still in the freezer (4th day). Can I just leave them in there, and use as needed, for cooking only? They are limas, if that makes any difference.
In the future, I will make sure they are very dry first, and freeze them 48 hours, then what? Do I take them out of the bag to defrost them, then store them in jars? I need advice. Thanks!

[Zeedman]

Peebee, limas take a long time to dry. The problem with excess moisture is that it forms ice crystals during freezing, which kills or weakens the seed. (It should also be mentioned that the same high moisture could still cause the beans to spoil at room temperature, if sealed in a plastic bag.)

You are in SoCal, though, so all may not be lost. There is a chance some of the seed was already dry enough to freeze. Pull the seed out of the freezer, allow it to warm up, then I would recommend doing a germination test with a small quantity of seed. The results will tell you how much damage was done, and you can plan accordingly.

Some additional notes on freezing beans. If you are only freezing them long enough to kill insects, then the container chosen is not that important, as long as it is reasonably air-tight. Freezer bags work fine for this.

Provided that the beans were dried to a low moisture content, they can be left in the freezer even longer for storage. For this, though, an air-tight container is especially important. If the container leaks air, the seeds will actually be freeze-dried over time, and will either die, or enter deep dormancy. If larger amounts of seed are to be stored, it is a good idea to place smaller zip lock bags of seed in a larger air-tight container such as a canning jar.

When removing seed from the freezer (or even from the fridge) it is important to allow the container & the seed within to reach room temperature before opening. If opened while the seed is still cool, moisture can condense on the seed, and could ruin it very quickly.

It's also harmful to freeze & thaw seed repeatedly, which is the reason I made the recommendation above to divide larger multi-year quantities into smaller zip lock bags within a jar. You can open the jar in the freezer, remove a bag quickly, and re-seal the container without thawing the remaining seed.

Oh, and when using freezer bags to store seed (whether frozen, refrigerated, or room temperature) be sure to squeeze out all excess air before sealing. If larger quantities are to be stored in a sealed jar, fill the jar as full as possible to expel air.

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by Zeedman

...I should note that the recommended temperature to kill the bugs & eggs is 0 degrees, which can be reached by most stand-alone freezers. It might not be attainable by the ice box on top of the fridge.

So if I don't have a stand-alone freezer, will freezing at 20-30 F help at all? What about bay leaves? Baking soda?? Diatomaceous earth (for beans to be planted, not eaten)??

I moved into a house once where there were larvae crawling from the jars of food in the pantry! The other people were oblivious or lazy. I threw out the infested stuff and put a bay leaf in the (visually) uninfested jars and didn't see bugs after that, but I also moved out as soon as I could.

[dustdevil]

Hi HG.

I suggest pitching the weevil infested beans. If you try planting them, it will just add to your garden being infested more and they won't germinate. When weevils bore their holes, it damages the bean seed. Even if some of the seed in the weevil tainted jar looks good on the outside, odds are there are some inside boring their way out.

Dust

[Zeedman]

I'm not sure about alternative measures, since freezing is so successful & is the only method I've used. Maybe someone you know has a freezer you could put your seed in. You also might be a able to use dry ice in a cooler to get the temperature low enough. Fumigation might work too, if you can find something which will not damage the seed.

Personally, I refrain from using poisons, but others may be able to give you input in that area.

[dustdevil]

Weevil info:

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r52300411.html

Note: Bill Best keeps his beans in a freezer

[peebee]

Thanks for all that info Zeedman! All is not lost--I harvested more lima beans today for drying out, have them in an open shallow cardboard box outside, its very warm and dry here now. Just to be safe, I'll leave them drying for weeks, then store some in a jar with the baking soda method AND freeze some the way you say to. These will be kept just for seeds next season. I'll leave the previous ones in the freezer and throw them is soups, etc.
At least now I know how to store beans properly. Whew!

[habitat_gardener]

Yes, I will toss the infested beans on the next trash day. I didn't even think of trying to salvage those, and I don't want to open the jar and let them out before then!

My main concern is the half-dozen or so varieties of beans I harvested this year that don't show any evidence of pests. I want to keep them uninfested, and I don't want to inadvertently introduce weevils into my other seed stock.

I will ask around and see who has a freezer.

I'd sooner stop saving seed than put poisons on my food.

[carolyn137]

One of the first heirloom varieties I was given was not a tomato one, but a bean one from a friend of my mothers and I grew it out, saved the bean seeds, put them in a jar and didn't look at them until the next growing season.

THe beans were black and what I saw in that jar was awful. Most of the beans looked like lace and the live weevils coated the inside of the jar as well. Until that point I'd never heard of bean weevils.

What I'd been given were the LAST of the bean seeds that the friend had given to my mother for me, that he got from his barber who had passed them on and asked the friend to make sure they were grown and saved in the future. So I sure felt the pressure, believe you me.

Carefully I went through the contents of that jar and found just 8 beans that looked OK, planted those out and from those got beans that I then knew to freeze.

Freezing bean seeds is simple, just follow what's been said above, no need to do anything else other than freezing the seeds.

Someone in a post above said that bean weevils are perhaps most common in the south, but I'm in upstate NY, zone 4/5 and they are here as well.

I SSE listed that bean, which was from Sweden, only to find out that it was perhaps the same bean variety found in Italy, but then the Swedes went a viking, did they not, so it makes sense.

And that bean I SSE listed so many years ago is still SSE listed by others. And to date it's the only bean I saved seeds from, switching to tomato and pepper heirlooms, and then dropping the peppers b'c of too much cross pollination and staying with the tomatoes.

But some of those peppers ended up at Johnny's, my source was Joe Sestito, and some at SESE, one of the Sestito ones and several others, and now I see that SSE in the public catalog is listing both of the Sestito ones.