Small Weavel bugs inside Hibiscus seeds?????

I have seen this almost every year and I am baffled.
There are these tiny (less than 1/8th ") weavel- like bugs that eat the insides out of each seed and leave a hole--sort of like a bead. They are hard-bodied, like a beetle would be and black in color. Not easy to squish one.

I do not know WHEN they set up housekeeping inside the seeds, but they are not apparent when I remove the seed heads and take out the seeds and put them on a plate to dry. They show up later after I have put all the seeds in small plastic bags. It seems they can exist just fine without air for a long time.

Tonight, I was going through all my bagged, collected seeds and in several of the bags from my Perennial Hibiscus, many of these bugs were clustered near the "zipper" end. When I shook the bag, you could see many of them crawling all over the seeds. I dumped the whole baggie out on a plastic plate and these weavels were crawling all over. Some of them were actually still crawling out of the holes in the seeds. I squished many of them and then sprayed a houseplant insect killer on the plate and spread it all around. It seemed to kill them. However, now i have wet seeds and have to wait until they dry to re-package them.

As far as I can imagine, I think the seeds with their centers drilled out will never germinate. What do you all think? So, now if someone wants my Hibiscus seeds, i would have to sort the seeds all out using a magnifying glass. NOT an easy job.

Can anyone tell me what these are--how do they get in there--what can I do in the future to prevent them--PLEASE!!!! Does anyone else have this problem?

The Hibiscus I have is a tall, perennial variety that blooms only after 3 years from seed. I have a red one and a whitish pink one. They grow about 5' tall--IF the variety matters.

I tried taking a close-up picture of one of the bugs, but my camera's macro does not work so great. This bug is on the rim of a Styrofoam plate. I hope you can make it out.

Thanks, Gita

I had the same problem this year. Bug killer when the flowers have formed is the only way I can think of to stop this.

CoreHHI,

Do you spray when the flowers open up? Are still in a bud form?

Since the Hibiscus flowers form daily and last only a day, how could i spray "when the flowers have formed"??? I'd be out there every day spraying! This is NOT a small plant, but almost a "shrub" 5' tall and 4' wide.

Waiting for some more advice, please.....

Gita

Here's the top of the Red Hibiscus. These blooms are different than the usual hibiscus.

Mine are big too. I've never had the problem before so I'm not sure what to do. I'm thinking just spray the plant down with neem oil when the hibiscus strts flowering and that should be enough to keep the bugs away. I may be wrong. LOL. I'll know next year.

Core,

GOSH! Your white Hibiscus looks just like my red one!!!
Do you know the name of this variety by any chance?????

I got seed for the Red one and the white/pinkish one from Ddkat in NJ. several years ago. Haven't seen her post anywhere since! Hmmmm....
The white was accidentally mixed in with the red, but the red had totally dominated the white and now I have almost NO seeds from the white. All of them were "drilled" through by these stupid weavels!

What to do???---What to do??----Neem oil is SOOO expensive!!!!

Gita

I don't know the name.

http://www.thesage.com/catalog/FixedOil.html

This outfit sells the PURE neem oil and is the cheapest that I've come across. So you can make one 16 oz bottle last quite a while - my sister told me about this & I truly like using the neem instead of the harsh chemical products. I do have a couple hibiscus that are about 5 ft tall and 3-4ft wide. I've used it all summer long on ALL my plants including my rose bushes (including one that's 9 ft by 6 ft tall)