Moth or ? pests

[bobm]

Last week my wife bought a supply of " organic " bulk out of large barrel as well as the brand name cake and cookie mix, flour, rice, rolled oats, ground corn, etc. yesterday, the pantry is FULL of DOZENS / HUNDREDS of little, flying, brown mothlike or ? pests. Can anyone ID them as well as how to KILL, MAIM, and DESTROY them . Other than squish them, what chemical warfare or traps / repellants works best ? And then what to use to deter them from entry again since we have not encountered these pests before.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

they sound like the little moths that tend to be found in flour or cereal grains. they are called flour or pantry moths and they are a nuisance. you probably should toss the stuff your wife just bought or go through anything you might currently have to see if those have been effected. anything you know isn't affected you should store in airtight containers any maybe freeze it for a few weeks to be sure anything that could have gotten into them is dead. then you can sift the flour/grain when you go to use it. but i would just toss everything and buy new to be sure there is nothing that could be affected by the moths.
http://www.ehow.com/how_5710728_rid-flour-moths.html

i've had this also happen to chicken feed-specifically chick starter.

 

[thistlebloom]

I would blame the bulk bins for whatever pests you have flying around your pantry, it's the nature of open storage to invite pests, not the fact that it's "organic".

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, we've been through that. It's not nice. We figure we got ours from a name-brand bag of flour. You need to read up on what they eat then toss all of that outside, don't just put it in the garbage inside the house. When you get new keep it in airtight bags or in the freezer until you know they are gone. It's been years but I'm thinking any flour, cornmeal, and dry cereal like breakfast cereals and oatmeal. You've got to stop them from eating and breeding plus destroy the eggs they've already laid.

In the meantime take everything off your pantry shelves, including shelf paper. They've laid eggs in there. Wipe the shelves down with a disinfectant to kill all eggs and blast the flying moths with your favorite insecticide. Then clean off your shelves and put down new shelf paper.

This is all from memory so reading Chickie's link is a good idea. One clear memory though is that it is a pain. Good luck with it.

 

[seedcorn]

Agree, it's the bulk. The airtight containers do not allow the bugs to hatch. Once hatched, if you keep the hatching material, they will b there.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Yup a bunch of eggs hatched. You'll see flour moths and the like at feed stores, bulk grainery places and more. Take everything out of the pantry and put it outside (covered) for a week or so. Wipe down the pantry shelves and corners and wall joints. Wipe down the cans and other hard containers. For any loose or paper wrapped dry stuff, place in large plastic food safe plastic bags for about 2 weeks (if you want to save the product) and most of the moths will have hatched so you can then sift the remaining product. Then keep it in tupperware or other hard plastic bins and keep checking for moths. They are hard to get rid of. There is a product with a pheromone pad specifically for pantry moths - buy a couple and place them in the pantry to capture the last of them.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

btw: they will hatch inside plastic too. Just ask me how they did that and ate all my habeneros and other peppers that I dehydrated last year....

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Yeah it happens. We always have some Indian Meal Moths flying around (that's what the bug traps are for) The worst time was the day as a kid I found some lavae in my bowl of Mueslix....... after I had eaten most of it (now a days I when I think back to it my thoughts are , "eh more protein")
They have also actually impacted my stored seed. Seven or eight years ago I found a cache of some truly odd corn at a local farmers market. Mini popcorn size but NOT popcorn Some were flint, some were fling flour and one or two were dent like the one below (note this is actually from the following year, so it is a little different from the rest, mostly in having a "normal" cob [most of them had short fat cobs, like strawberry corn, or Andean)

Given how odd it was I would really have liked to have kept all of them on their cobs until planting time. Only I couldn't. Obviosly the stuff had been stored for far too long and pantry moths had actually managed to eat through most of the kernels (not the one in the pic, don't bother looking). I ended up having to shell nearly all of them and even them I was picking infested kernels out for weeks thereafter. a few even managed to get into the general storage (cost me the only truly grey corn kernel I ever saw).

And then a few months ago I went to look at the container I keep some of my Andean corn, and discovered that, thanks to them not keeping the bin clean at the bodega I buy from, it was FULL of grain weevils. I think I got them all out, but I am still keeping and eye on the container (I'd toss it all and start again but it took me five years just to accumulate that much stippled Andean from the bin hunts)

 

[so lucky]

I think the brand name is "Safer" for the pheromone traps. They work very well. Any time you are dealing with un-processed grain, you are going to have a few of those little buggers. I get them in chicken scratch a lot. Freezing seems to kill the larvae but I don't know if it kills the eggs or not. You just have to be vigilant, and use the pheromone traps. They seem expensive for what they are, but you will be glad to pay it if they do the job.

 

[catjac1975]

I keep flours and grains in the fridge to prevent them from getting a moth infestation.