Dear "Deano"

Dr Marks here. I sense your frustration. I poke around in your backroom with a magnifying glass and my gas chromotograph for two weeks and yet your situation stays the same. I promised to inform you of my results and I intend to keep that promise.

I will address each of the points you have made about the beans on your premises.

🫘"The singing" classic case of Cavitation within the beans cotyldons. Stored at 18 °C and 72 % relative humidity (your shop’s exact microclimate, according to my data logger), the beans absorb trace moisture unevenly. Tiny air pockets collapse under osmotic pressure, producing audible pops and whistles at frequencies between 1.8 and 3.2 kHz—precisely the range your ear interprets as a Dolly Parton tune.

🫘"The dancing"

What you witnessed is less dancing thzn tumbling. A combination of hygroscopic expansion and minor electrostatic charge (generated when you shift sacks across that wool rug of yours) causes individual beans to repel one another. At critical density—about 640 beans per cubic decimetre—they form transient hexagonal packing arrays that look like synchronised movement under your LED striplights. It’s physics doing the dance, not the beans.

🫘"The fornication"

Certain cultivars exude volatile pheromones—methyl jasmonate and a cocktail of terpenes—when stressed. In a confined space, these compounds trigger neighbouring beans to swell and split their seed coats in a reproductive false alarm. What you saw were two beans rupturing in tandem, extruding starchy endosperm that briefly resembled… well, let’s just say “intimacy.” Entirely asexual, entirely accidental, and thankfully, brief.

🫘"The farting"

Fermentation, pure and simple. A Clostridium spore hitched a ride on last month’s shipment. Under anaerobic conditions in the hessian sacks, it metabolised residual sugars into CO₂ and hydrogen. Pressure builds; the pericarp yields with a pffft. The smell? Butyric acid my friend. Open the vents, rotate the stock.

🫘"The guided tours"

Optical illusion plus confirmation bias. The beans roll downhill along the slight gradient of your floorboards (2.3° slope, northwest corner I measured it myself). Dust motes caught in the convection currents from your radiator create fleeting shadows that your sleep-deprived brain stitches into “processions.”

Please, Mr Deano. Your shop is not haunted and you are not going mad. These phenomena peaked because the atmospheric pressure dropped 12 mb during Wednesday’s storm front—perfect conditions for the above. As the barometer climbs and you implement my three simple fixes (ventilation, stock rotation, and swapping that wool rug for rubber matting), the beans will revert to their customary inert state. You may reopen tomorrow with confidence; I’ve already drafted the all-clear for Environmental Health.

Do ring immediately if you spot anything actually inexplicable. You might consider me a bean whisperer of sorts if you wish. Legumes can be tricky . But with empirical rigour they can usually be sorted out.

Relax, keep the lights on and the door open.

Yours,

Dr Marks, DSc

Senior Behavioural Legume Analyst