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I was playing gig today and had intermittently sticking 4th valve and when there was convenient moment took the valve out to oil to only find live insect inside the valve. I was using 'non-toxic' valve oil. I think another time I will use toxic oil to kill the bugs!

Bleah.

There's probably a nest in the small bottom bow
One of them took the wrong turn

Perhaps "fatal attraction" because you played The Bumblebee, Jonathan?
Hubert

Neptune wrote:I was playing gig today and had intermittently sticking 4th valve and when there was convenient moment took the valve out to oil to only find live insect inside the valve. I was using 'non-toxic' valve oil. I think another time I will use toxic oil to kill the bugs!

I'm not sure I would want to have a toxic valve oil. A good flush of the horn may be warranted. Besides many cultures eat bugs as a protein source. Not very appealing to me, but in a pinch.......

Next time, photos would be helpful.

It was alive and actually flew off as soon as I took the valve out.

I am sure it had crawled in through leadpipe. Other insects of that type were seen around.

It is just the strangest reason I have found for sticking valve!

Neptune wrote:It was alive and actually flew off as soon as I took the valve out.

I am sure it had crawled in through leadpipe. Other insects of that type were seen around.

It is just the strangest reason I have found for sticking valve!

this reminds me of an instance in middle school.... Where a dead rat was found in the Bugle of an old Yamaha....

Those of us who live in the southeastern US are fully aware of the determination of a wide variety of bugs to get into problematic places. Basically, if there is a hole or recess accessible to them, some bug will get in there and probably set up a nest. In places like barns and outbuildings they particularly like the recess for the grounding prong of 3-prong electrical outlets. They also love a whole bunch of places on tractors, fuse/breaker boxes, telephone junction boxes, well pressure switches, etc. (My well pump is tripping its breaker and tomorrow I will be seeing if some critter has decided over the winter -- we only use the well for garden watering -- to set up shop in the pressure switch relay.)

I remind you that the origin of the term "bug" in reference to computer programs comes from a similar incident (circa 1947?) in which the Eniac computer ceased functioning correctly, and the problem was traced to a moth caught in a mechanical relay.

There was a moth, but the etymology of "bug" goes back much further. Hopper liked the story because it was funny - as a bug, the moth was a sort of pun.

Thomas Edison wrote: 'Bugs' -- as such little faults and difficulties are called -- show themselves and months of intense watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success or failure is certainly reached.

That was from a letter Edison wrote in 1878. We don't know why we call them bugs, we just do. Maybe from "bugbear", word borrowed from Welsh.

Try not to confuse etymology with entomology!!

Three Valves wrote:Try not to confuse etymology with entomology!!

The WordPerfect spell-checker always tried to substitute "entomology" whenever I typed "etymology."

That really bugged me.