Pantry Pests and Why You’ve Got Them
Pantry pests are small insects such as beetles and moths that occur in stored food products. Because so many insects are food-specific, you often find the same type of pest in the same kind of food. Certain species of beetles occur in dried beans, while other pests may occur in flour.
Why Are Their Pantry Pests In Your Home?
Most pantry pests show up in your home’s pantry because you brought them in when you bought dried goods. A bean beetle will drill into a dry bean and lay eggs. Once you buy the package of dried beans with the beetle brood in it, they hatch when you store those beans in your pantry. Flour that sits for a while might appear to have pepper in it. That’s not pepper. It is tiny weevils or beetles. They are there because there were insect eggs in the flour you bought. The small beetles or weevils in the flour are there because they hatched out once the temperature warmed up a bit.
Moth as Pantry Pests
There are a few species of moths that are pantry pests. The Indian Meal Moth is just one example. Their presence can be from one of two sources. The food contained moth eggs, or the moths flew in and laid eggs in the food. Either way, there are moth pests in your home.
What To Do About Pantry Pests
One of the best ways to prevent pantry pests is freeze-dried food for a few weeks. The cold temperature will kill most insect eggs preventing them from hatching. Go through your pantry often and look at the dried foods you’ve stored there. Discard anything that might have pantry pests in it.
If your pantry pest issues continue, give us a call. We can get rid of pantry pests, such as adult moths and beetles, so that they are not laying more eggs in your home. We provide comprehensive and effective pest control services that are also affordable. We serve the Bryan and College Station communities.
