Do you know what a weevil is? I didn't until today. I have come to find out that I have weevils in my grains. The other day I was making wheat bread. There were weevil larvae in my dough enhancer. A week ago, I found a 50+ pound container of raw wheat in my basement from previous owners. I called a granary and asked how long raw wheat stays good. She told me to put a 1/4 a cup in water and if it starts to sprout in a few days, it's still good. As I was scooping some out, there were hatched larvae throughout the whole thing! Sick!!! And today I was making deviled eggs and there were weevils floating around in the vinegar. How the heck did weevils get in vinegar? It doesn't even make sense. So, I'm going through my cupboards and getting rid of anything I haven't used in 6 months. I'm wondering if there's a chance that there are weevil eggs in the flour, rice or other grains we buy, and then they hatch while they just sit in our pantry. I've been reading some stuff online and there are a couple deterrents you can try. After opening your containers of grains, drop in a couple cloves or bay leaves. You can even spread them around your pantry. Another one to try are matchbooks. Take a plain old matchbook, open it up, and set it in with your grains or pastas. Apparently the sulfur smell from the matches acts as a weevil deterrent.
This is a rice weevil. I've never seen them as an actual beetle:
This is what I usually find in my grains if I find them:
I check every time I open up my grains, so it's not very often cuz I use them so much, but when I found them in my vinegar, I started getting a little concerned. I still have no idea how they got in my vinegar. Weird....
This is something I found about weevils:
The two most common types of pantry weevils are the granary weevil (Sitophilus granarius) and the rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae). They are often referred to as snout weevils. These little pantry pests are actually beetles; very small beetles that rarely get any larger than ¼ of an inch. Female weevils use their little snouts to drill holes in the casings of grains, such as wheat, oats, rye, rice, corn, barley, and various seeds and beans. Once the hole is drilled, she deposits an egg and seals the hole back up with a gelatinous glue-like substance that she creates all by her little self. The egg hatches after a few days, and the larvae uses its surroundings as a lunch box for about the next month. For this reason, it can be difficult to detect an infestation. Not only is it slow to start but the larvae are in hiding. Once grain weevils (a.k.a. flour weevils) or rice weevils present themselves, you've got a problem. A single female can lay up to 400 eggs, which means up to 400 more hungry bugs lookin' for a snack.
Can you say D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G!?!?!?
Monday, April 5, 2010
Disgusting!!!!
Posted by Nicole at 10:07 AM
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1 comments:
BLEH! I've got to go check my wheat and rice now ~
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