cigar beetle question

[johnnyflake]

ughh, I had hoped I never had to ask about the dreaded cigar beetle, but today I found them. My question is, how did they get there? Here's the situation. I've had my entire stash in a coolidor and inside separate cigar boxes for 2.5 years now. During that time, the temperature has not fluctuated above or below 67-70 degrees fahrenheit and the rh has always been a steady 65%. I also test and re-calibrate both of my hygrometers once a month. The beetles were discovered on 2 gran habano 2002's, which have been in the cooler since march of 2014. No other cigar has been effected. I have taken the necessary quarantine precautions since the discovery but that really doesn't answer the mystery of how this happened. Even more strange, 4 days ago I pulled cigars from the same box, and there were no beetles present on said infected sticks.

So I guess my question is, how would a beetle hatch on 2 sticks in a completely controlled environment, when they have already been resting in the environment for 18 months?

Thanks for any input. The plus side is, at least it was a couple of cheap smokes that got wasted and not the good stuff.

You do not state if the beetles were alive or not. You say they were found ON the cigars. Were there any holes in the cigars they were on? Hold the cigars over a piece of paper, up right with the foot at the bottom and tap the cigars vigorously on the paper. If lots of dust comes out, onto the paper, they are/were alive and did penetrate the cigar and carved it up. If you do not see holes and no dust comes out, of the cigars, they probably were not penetrated. If they were not alive and did not penetrate the cigars, it may just be a fluke and they were dead and present when you got the cigars. If they were alive, you will have a bigger problem than you may think and it's hard to determine where they came from!

If they were alive and did penetrate any of your cigars, freezing everything is the only way to protect what you have from further out breaks and damage!

[thechasm442]

You do not state if the beetles were alive or not. You say they were found ON the cigars. Were there any holes in the cigars they were on? Hold the cigars over a piece of paper, up right with the foot at the bottom and tap the cigars vigorously on the paper. If lots of dust comes out, onto the paper, they are/were alive and did penetrate the cigar and carved it up. If you do not see holes and no dust comes out, of the cigars, they probably were not penetrated. If they were not alive and did not penetrate the cigars, it may just be a fluke and they were dead and present when you got the cigars. If they were alive, you will have a bigger problem than you may think and it's hard to determine where they came from!

If they were alive and did penetrate any of your cigars, freezing everything is the only way to protect what you have from further out breaks and damage!

I did not see actual evidence of beetles, however the worst affected cigar had lots of brown powdery substance in the wrapper, as well as a few holes. Just 4 days prior, none of this was visible.