maybe wine weevil

Hi Whatsthis, welcome to GOY.Submerged in just water will not have destroyed all of the grubs. Try salt in warm water, they should float up to the top of the container.
The salt will not harm the tubers.

thanks doctorbob1 - do you think they are wine weevil grubs

Hi Whatsthis, I had a visist from the dreaded wine weevils a few years ago they got in all my tubs and caused havock! I found that if I ran my fingers around under the curled edges of the tubs the vine weevil beetles were dropping out in dozens all nesting there, the bugs got into my begonias too, but I bought the Vine Weevil killer from the garden centre and systematically watered every tub I had and carefully went through the soil of any tubs I emptied and thankfully I rid my garden of them, don't let them get to that proportion!!!! be warned. Mine seemed to come from nowhere in no time. Good Luck!

Hi again.
Yes they most probably are vine weevils, they are difficult to get rid of and they do hang about. The best time to catch the adults is in April/ May with young Hydrangea leaves placed in the greenhouse or containers overnight and then destroy them in the morning. Or as Telme says you can use the spray.

Killing root weevils in that stage of life is darn near impossible. Orthene might be the only thing that might work. Isotox maybe, the formulation has changed. These are chemicals available in America and Orthene is for growers only. It is dangerous stuff.

I once infected my California Nursery with these bugs. A purchase I had made from an Oregon company. We put 1o weevils into test execution chambers. Tried everything. NOTHING worked. We then tried combining things. :-(

Cygon with god knows what. We tried a couple of these combinations until one actually started fuming. We had created the equivalent of a World War 1 poison gas. It did kill the critters, but could have taken out two fools as well.

Soaking these bulbs may also be problematical. They need to dry out... My own more organic approach would be dig out all you can with a nail if need be. Roll them in diatamacious earth and then put them in a cedar type sawdust. Pray

As everyone else has posted, the vine weevil can be controlled during their adult stage. The April/May thing is the same here in the Pacific NW. One needs to do it every two weeks during this entire time frame. There are products labeld for this. Neem oil is a potential alternative.
I have mixed feelings about that.

Here they feast on Strawberry, Bergenia Rhodies and so much more.