Mites passing thru a fabricoted lid??

[Philsuma]

I do not believe that mites of any size can pass thru the fabricote lids. I just don't.

[joneill809]

Perhaps they get in through the lip of the cup and not the actual vents?

[Philsuma]

I don't think they can get into a cup at all. Mites may be congregating under the lip and then some spill over or fall into the cup when we take off the lid to feed out ect.

[joneill809]

I'll grab a pic of an old beetle culture in a bed of diatomaceous earth. You can see a concentration of mites around the lip of the lid and a distinct ring of dead mites on the DE. I have noticed that the lid seals are not perfect so I'm pretty sure there are gaps a mite can get through. DE is awesome though - I have not had any booms since using it. Only problems I have encountered are with my really old bean beetle cultures.

[Philsuma]

I doubt they are able to get in a snapped on lid either. Mites crawl. Mites climb. They are on the lip and outside of the cups and get inside when we feed out ect. They are not getting thru the fabric or past a well snapped lid.

[frogfreak]

I think they can do both. My tray covered in DE and dead mites would suggest then can.

[Philsuma]

I think they can do both. My tray covered in DE and dead mites would suggest then can.

I'm still betting all those carcasses you find are from OTHER neighboring cultures that crawled to where you found them.

Mites are small but lids should seal damn near airtight and similar with fabric. I need to see a microscope pic (or video) of a jailbreak in progress or I still don't believe.

[Philsuma]

OR there was some 'spillout' when you feed from those cultures and you 'assisted' the mites already inside ,getting out.

[frogfreak]

How can they get out of a neighbouring culture if they can get threw the fabric or gap in the lid?

Nope, I pull a culture from the tray and dump over a funnel. Table is cleaned after every feeding.

Take an unopened FF culture and put it on a white surface. It will have a ring of mites around it in no time.

[Philsuma]

Mites are crawling all around any area where cultures are kept. They get out when lids are opened for feeding out...funnels be damned. Wiping be damned. SOME amount of free-crawling mites are always present around cultures due to opening them to feed out.

It would take a serious experiment to prove that they are getting out of the lid and fabric....on their own.

[joneill809]

Well I'm just recounting what I've seen, and how it's impacted my FF and BB culturing. Recently I started keeping BB, so I'm new and not familiar with the culture cycles. I also don't feed off them that regularly yet. They are in their own culture box, as are all species of FF I keep. Each box is lined with ~1" of DE.

In November I had a mite problem in my BB cultures. There were 11 cultures - 4-3-4 orientation - with no cultures touching. One by one the three in the middle developed mite infestations as they hit the three month mark; I had not opened or moved the middle ones for that month. They each developed a distinct ring of mite carcasses around their base as the mites died exiting the cultures. The darkest part of the rings (assuming the deepest pile of carcasses) were right next to the culture, and the ring lightened further away from the cup wall. There were concentrations of mites on the fabric lids and the lip of the cup, both inside and out. Not scientific proof, but the implication was the mites were in the culture, boomed, and got out...three times. Now I sift out the bean beetle carcasses and waste periodically but it's enough for me to strongly suspect these lids are not mite proof, and that additional steps are required to prevent and isolate cultures from cross contaminating.

[Philsuma]

Gee I dunno Jim. As much as I like to process your observations above, I still think that if any lid is taken off whatsoever - all bets are off as far as mite origin is concerned.

What we know:

Mites are in or around almost ALL foodstuffs - grain like foods. Heck mites are on US right now. On our face. On our eyebrows ect. They are crawling all over our yard. Our pool. Our pets, ect. They are everywhere. Always.

They climb.

They tend to congregate on edges and in cracks. This is why FF cultures are better stored on flat trays and not in cubicles or cabinets or in enclosed boxes.

When they are found dead - all fluffy and brown and 'yeasty' (heh, made that term up just now) it is still IMO, very much a mystery if they were COMING or GOING.

some thoughts.

[Philsuma]

Now someone is claiming maggots are 'getting out' of the fabri-cote lids??? Impossible.

[edwardsatc]

Now someone is claiming maggots are 'getting out' of the fabri-cote lids??? Impossible.

I've seen maggots chew through the fabri-cote lids when the culture was kept too moist (fabric in lid is moist).

[edwardsatc]

I do not believe that mites of any size can pass thru the fabricote lids. I just don't.

1st instar grain mites can be as small as 0.07 mm, At that size they are perfectly capable of working their way through a fabric lid.

[Philsuma]

Thanks Don. Diatomaceous Earth it will be then!

[Philsuma]

I still feel that the vast majority of mite infestations occur by:

#1 - using a contaminated culture as seed stock for the new culture (the largest factor by far)

#2 - stacking culture cups - making it too easy for mites to travel / creating a superhighway

#3 - When feeding out, or transferring flies to the dusting cup, the opening of the lid and tapping out of the flies allows mites to get on the lip of the lid and outside the cup.

in the end, mites are a minor inconvenience to our hobby unless you are allergic or have poor dedication to remaining on a culture making schedule.

[Philsuma]

This is the only lid to use

[Broseph]

I'm pretty certain mites can travel in and out between the lid and the cup, regardless of the lid type. The lids have a track that the lip of the cup "locks" into, but it's not really a lock. The crunchy sound when you open or close an old culture is caused by all the mites getting squished between these surfaces.

I had an especially crunchy one after getting some new cultures going from a store-bought (mite-filled) culture, so I took a crappy phone video. You can see all the mites between the lid and cup. 




I didn't get a picture, but there ended up being a ring of dead mites in the diatomaceous earth below this culture.

[Philsuma]

Yeah, short of sealing the cx's up in a lab type setting or a NASA experiment. The mites probably congregate near the lip and some of the tiny neonates squeeze in.

The lid is something we can do better or at least push the best practice to use the Fabric coated lids. This thread, if I remember correctly, was in response to someone on FB literarily saying the Mites were walking right in thru the fabric.

I'm not sure who started the tiny holes lids, maybe Josh's to save some money, but those lids are just awful.