Pointe shoe weevils?

[Greg Shenaut]

My daughter saves her old pointe shoes. Why? I'm not sure.

She recently was rearranging her room, and she noticed that some
kind of strange bug had infested the box she keeps them in.

The sign that a shoe was infested is a number of tiny round holes
bored into the box--as if someone took a drill with a 1/16th inch
bit and drilled them.

After she showed them to me, I remembered that I have seen these
same holes in "sales rack" pointe shoes in dance shops--which may
actually be how they got into my daughter's pointe shoe box in the
first place.

I imagine that the bugs burrow themselves a nest in the thick glue
of the box, and then lay their eggs in there.

Well, has anyone else had this experience? I imagine that if these
critters hit the stockroom of a dance shop or a large company, it
could be very expensive to deal with.

Greg Shenaut

[PriMoDnc]

Libraries freeze their old books to kill the mites or weevils, which also
enjoy a delicious meal of glue. For how long, I don't know. Might be worth a
try to save the collection.

[Lara H]

> Well, has anyone else had this experience? I imagine that if these
> critters hit the stockroom of a dance shop or a large company, it
> could be very expensive to deal with.

When the Royal Opera House was remodeled, one of the key things was the
shoe room - the shelves have this special pesticide on them so that when a
bug exits the shoe, it exits life too! Instead of moving on to invest
another shoe.

Saw that on the ROH opening gala tape. Pretty fascinating. Shoes have bugs.

--
life in the photographer's shoes
http://www.digitalstoryteller.com/BTV00/hartley/index.shtml

[bek]

X-52783-Poster: "bek" <cca...@home.com>

one comment! UHG
time to decide if shoes are worth having around with little critters dancing
in them.......

Bek..Retired......Now doing coaching and costume design
SO.....maybe NOT retired?

-

---- Original Message -----
From: Greg Shenaut <gr...@bogslab.ucdavis.edu>
To: <ballet...@world.std.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2001 9:23 AM
Subject: Pointe shoe weevils?

> X-52779-Poster: Greg Shenaut<gr...@bogslab.ucdavis.edu>

[Aden Marne]

This is a good idea. I have to do the same thing to kill off moth eggs that
frequently infests bird seed. Freezing for three days was enough for the seed.
I don't know how long you should freeze the shoes.

Aden

[Desp]

I heard about a Russian company (Kirov/Bolshoi?) that got some kind of
woodworms in their pointe shoes a while back.....

Ugh!!!

Desp