Black Vine Weevils in the house

kuepper

A couple of weeks ago I found a few of these in my livingroom on the curtains and had them id'd by the natural history museum. I've since found about about 7 or 8 every day but only on carpets, curtains and window sill, never on plants, and usually at night or in morning. I've checked all my houseplants and can only see possible damage on 3 of them- a Mother in law's tongue, a spider plant and a ponytail palm - though in last case it could be some sort of mite. Having read about life cycle, i'm at a loss to understand where they are coming from, besides the limited leaf damage all my houseplants look healthy, the only 'death' i've had recently was of a prayer plant whose leaves had curled inwards which i'd attributed to another cause and certainly no sign of insects or grubs in the pot. I don't know where these weevils are during the day, if I knew i could probably use insecticide or physically destroy them. Obviously i'm worried they are laying eggs that could hatch as grubs eating roots of and killing my 30+ houseplants next year. has anyone any experience or suggestions as to what to do?

Davesnave

It's early to see adults around, but there again, we've not had a hard winter.

Unless your house has numerous holes in it, I'd not imagine these are coming in from outside, but originating from pots indoors.

Outdoors, I know that last years grubs are still grubs, as I'm squashing them regularly on re-potting. None have reached the half and half transition stage yet, let alone adulthood.

kuepper

Davesnave wrote: »

Unless your house has numerous holes in it, I'd not imagine these are coming in from outside, but originating from pots indoors.

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I've looked at the likely suspect pot plants and they seem healthy as ever, whereas if the rubs had been feeding on the roots they'd be all withered wouldn't they? Looked at roots and no sign of grubs.

madjackslam

This http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/advice/pests_and_diseases/identifier.shtml?black_vine_weevil suggests they come out around March and April indoors, a couple of months earlier than outdoors. Maybe they haven't done that much damage to their host plant this year. Or perhaps there's a house plant you haven't checked yet that's going to flop over suddenly in a week or two.

kuepper

Thanks for responses. Had a 2nd look at the likely suspects today and in Mother in law's tongue found some beetles in the compost around roots, no sign of grubs though. Disposed of plant rather than try treatment. Then tonight annoyed to find a weevil on a window in a different ground floor room, so more investigations needed!

blootoon

Had my first 2 of the year just the other day, not sure where they are coming from this year but last year the small number of houseplants we had were all clear, but the lilly pots outside had a few grubs in them which i treated so we had very little sign of them after that.

kuepper

blootoon wrote: »

Had my first 2 of the year just the other day, not sure where they are coming from this year but last year the small number of houseplants we had were all clear, but the lilly pots outside had a few grubs in them which i treated so we had very little sign of them after that.

When you say treated do you mean with eg Provado Vine Weevil killer? Not seen any beetles for 24 hrs now so I'm wondering whether to leave things and see or whether to treat with the Provado as a precaution in case eggs have been laid in any of remaining plants.

Yellowhammer15

Interesting! I also noticed black vine weevils in my house on a few occasions over the past few months, and also couldn't figure out where they were coming from. I Googled "vine weevils in the house" and found your thread. The only indoor plants I had in the house were also mother in law's tongue, which seems to correlate very accurately to your experience. I've just thrown out the plants and hope that solves the problem.

I suspect the weevil you found after you disposed of your plant was already loose in your house before you disposed of the plant.

Thanks for posting this thread - it helped me make my mind up about what to do. :beer:

kuepper

Yellowhammer15 wrote: »

I suspect the weevil you found after you disposed of your plant was already loose in your house before you disposed of the plant.

Thanks for posting this thread - it helped me make my mind up about what to do. :beer:

I've found 2 today, 1 in a different room to where the mother in law's tongue was , so I'm still worried another plant might might be subtlely affected unless the little sods go walkabout

blootoon

kuepper wrote: »

When you say treated do you mean with eg Provado Vine Weevil killer? Not seen any beetles for 24 hrs now so I'm wondering whether to leave things and see or whether to treat with the Provado as a precaution in case eggs have been laid in any of remaining plants.

i have used it but i prefer to use safer methods like Nemasys Vine Weevil Killer