Bugs

[odarwin]

Hi guys,

These are tea bugs right....?





Saw those on a small "test brick" that i put inside my tea cabinet but not in boxes where the rest of the stash is. Its the brick intended to warn me of molds and all those sort of things so i dont have to open my boxes that often. They mostly munch on the bamboo and paper wrappers but seems to leave the tea alone... Sometimes, i see bigger and more agile bugs on some cakes but sometimes they are nowhere to be found...
These in the picture seems to be the baby version of the silver bugs...?

I shouldnt worry about these bugs right....?

Its warm here all year round say 30-27 on ave, with humidity at 65% ave year round

[Jspigs]

I am definitely not an expert on tea bugs but that almost looks like some kind of termite.

[TwoDog2]

The wormy thing in pic one looks similar to the worm from this post

If you are in a tropical location with high temperatures and humidity, bugs will be around. In my experience, few bugs actually harm the tea. Silverfish will eat the paper wrappers. There are also some small white bugs that I have never been able to figure out the actual name of that I see from time to time, but they never seem to do anything but scurry around the tops of cakes.

In the post I referenced above, that worm was in a cake that was stored in wet storage in Hong Kong. From what I could tell It didn't do anything to the cake, other than burrow inside and live there. I just tossed it out and brewed the tea anyway and it was fine. I only had one though. If there are a lot of them it might be a problem. Maybe someone with more tropical experience can speak better than me. Most of my cakes are stored more towards the middle of the wet/dry spectrum.

[odarwin]

Thanks for your replies,

I hope its not termites thou... But it definately looks like the one in the link twodog2 posted.... Any thoughs as to what the bug in the link is? Is it a baby version of the silverfish bug?

I also see silverfish in some cakes, but in cakes that have only previously gone through some traditional storage before i got them... During the rainy season, i would see some, but they would dissapear when its dryer.

[Catfur]

The tiny white bugs that are crawling around on your stuff, do they appear to "jump" when disturbed?

If they jump, they are probably springtails, tiny little critters (six legged, but not really insects), and are generally harmless. Even if they don't jump, they could still be springtails.

They could also be tiny mites.

[odarwin]

The best way to describe their movement would be that they seem to be cocooing their way around... Slow sloppy movements unlike silverfish that run and hide very fast.

[jayinhk]

Never seen them myself, but they definitely don't look like silverfish from here!

BTW, nasaan sa Pilipinas pare? I'm just over the water in Hong Kong.

[MarshalN]

Hmm, nice worm.

Silverfish are pretty benign. They eat your wrapping paper. Leave the cake in a dryish area and they'll go away.