One day you’ve got a clean bag of rice or pasta or flour, and then when you open it up – eew! It’s filled with little black specks. Odds are, those are rice weevils, a pest that’s common to cupboards and pantries everywhere.
There are nearly 100,000 types of weevils, and they can be anywhere from 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch long. But all you care about is keeping them out of your food.
We’ll explain how to get rid of them. But first, let’s find out how they got in your food in the first place.
Where do rice weevils come from?
It can be puzzling to see rice weevils suddenly materialize. You never see them outside the bag, so where do they come from?
Don’t worry – it’s nothing you are or aren’t doing.
When you see rice weevils, it’s usually because they were already in the packaging from the grocery store. You just never noticed them because you can’t see inside certain packages (like those for cereals). And even in clear packages, like for rice or the clear windows on some boxes of pasta, you may not see the weevils until they’ve hatched.
So why do they suddenly appear even in packages that looked clean? Because weevils lay their eggs inside the grain or seed kernel and then seal up the hole. When the egg hatches, they feed on the food source until they emerge.
How to get rid of rice weevils
Now that you know how they got in your food, here are a few steps you can take to prevent rice weevils from invading your cupboards:
- Check the packages while you’re in the store. If the packaging for a bag of rice, pasta, or seed lets you see the contents, shake it up a bit. Look for little black specks that may be a sign of a weevil infestation.
- Make sure your cupboard or pantry shelves are clean of weevils before stocking new food items. You can wipe down the shelves, wait for them to dry, and then vacuum to make sure you got them all.
- Throw out any container of food that has signs of weevils. Then take your sealed trash bag outside and place it in the bin. This will prevent the weevils from migrating to another food source in your house.
With baking season here, flour is sure to be on our shopping lists. That means a chance that weevils will be joining us for the holidays.
But as long as you take precautions, you’ll be cooking with clean food. And if you do have an infestation that seems to keep coming back, call the professionals at JD Smith Pest Control. Our inspectors will take stock of your situation and offer the best treatment plan.
