Black Beetles! 😞

Candy53

Here they are. 

Keep_pedalling

The UK has hundreds of species of black ground beetles, but I am pretty sure these are Strawberry seed beetles (Harpalus rufipes) Adults are as their name suggests seed eaters and can be a pest of agricultural crops, the larvae however are predatory.

They are mainly nocturnal but are attracted to light (I see lots of these when I run my light trap which I use to record moth species visiting the garden), so you should see a lot less of them in the house if you dim the lights.

Try not to be too freaked out by them they don’t bite and are quite harmless. 

https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/strawberry-seed-beetle

Katiehound

No help, but maybe something to do with the hot weather?

I remember the plague of ladybirds that  got blown to the east by prevailing winds & ending up nipping folk on the east coast beaches in the ? 70s?.

Farway

Katiehound said:

No help, but maybe something to do with the hot weather?

I remember the plague of ladybirds that  got blown to the east by prevailing winds & ending up nipping folk on the east coast beaches in the ? 70s?.

That was 1976, year of the drought, we had French ladybirds coming over here to bite us due to lack of normal food, too hot & everything dry, poor things were starving to death

Alnat1

We get those exact same beetles in the house each year in June here in South Yorks. I have never seen them flying in, we find them on the floor, dead or half-dead when we get up in the morning. They disappear after a couple of weeks

Bottom of the garden is a field (was wheat this year) and then woods so maybe it's a countryside thing.

Alnat1

Looking at details of strawberry seed beetles, the rear part looks chunkier than the beetles we get and size is given as 11-16mm. Our beetles are a bit longer and slimmer but very similar.

Keep_pedalling

Alnat1 said:

We get those exact same beetles in the house each year in June here in South Yorks. I have never seen them flying in, we find them on the floor, dead or half-dead when we get up in the morning. They disappear after a couple of weeks

Bottom of the garden is a field (was wheat this year) and then woods so maybe it's a countryside thing.

Numbers will be higher in areas where cereal crops are grown. I only get small numbers in a night in my suburban garden.

Candy53

Keep_pedalling said:

Alnat1 said:

We get those exact same beetles in the house each year in June here in South Yorks. I have never seen them flying in, we find them on the floor, dead or half-dead when we get up in the morning. They disappear after a couple of weeks

Bottom of the garden is a field (was wheat this year) and then woods so maybe it's a countryside thing.

Numbers will be higher in areas where cereal crops are grown. I only get small numbers in a night in my suburban garden.

Ours don't die though, unfortunately. Once they're in the house, they stay unless we get them. They hide underneath things during day and come out at night. 

Yeah, we are surrounded by mainly barley and wheat fields, but they usually go way before the harvest starts. It could be the recent hot weather that's multiplied them and kept them coming, but I just want them to stop now. 

Candy

Apodemus

I guess your choices are to learn to live with them, shut your windows, or leave your lights off!  As mentioned above, they are completely harmless.   Perhaps this might help you come to terms with them:  https://allpoetry.com/poem/8518989-Forgiven-by-A.A.-Milne 

Candy53

What a greatly written poem. Okay for children who used to catch bugs and keep them in match boxes, as I remember from my school days, but not for a woman who finds one on her arm. Lol.

Anyway, they're still rampant, so we close everything up as it's getting dark, and keep the tubs outside to see how many we're getting, and there are still loads every morning, so looking forward to the day when there arn't any in there.

Candy