Finally the lid falls, the insect leaves its cell, and the haricot remains pierced by as many holes as it has nourished grubs.
Extremely frugal, satisfied with a little farinaceous powder, the adults seem by no means anxious to abandon the native heap or bin so long as there are beans untouched.

They mate in the interstices of the heap; the mothers sow their eggs at random; the young larvae establish themselves some in beans that are so far intact, some in beans which are perforated but not yet exhausted; and all through the summer the operations of breeding are repeated once in every five weeks.

The last generation of the year--that of September or October--sleeps in its cells until the warm weather returns.
If the haricot pest were ever to threaten us seriously it would not be very difficult to wage a war of extermination against it.

Its habits teach us what tactics we ought to follow.

It exploits the dried and gathered crop in the granary or the storehouse.