How to get rid of flour bugs in the kitchen? Such a question arises in the head of every housewife upon the discovery of numerous small insects that have occupied food stocks in the closet. A rather unpleasant sight threatens not only a spoiled mood, but also a partial or complete parting with damaged cereals. You can, of course, try to save at least something by sifting through a sieve, but ... only adults are "sorted out", but eggs laid by them, scanty and similar to grains of flour, will easily pass through the holes in the sieve.
Therefore, it’s best to look for another solution to a difficult and unpleasant question: “How to get rid of
bugs in cereals once and for all?”
Who lives on the kitchen shelves?
If bugs appeared in the kitchen - how to get rid of them quickly and efficiently? You should be aware that there are plenty of applicants for the contents of kitchen cabinets: bread grinders, flour grinders , red flour-eaters, food moths. Each of these species, once in favorable conditions, significantly spoils the products and actively reproduces. How to get rid of bugs in the kitchen cabinet?
Bread grinders are small bugs (up to 3.7 mm in length), characterized by incredible vitality and fertility. They have a black-brown body color and a small, fully shell-covered head. Adults do not feed: larvae harm kitchen supplies.
Penetrating into the nutrient substrate, they make numerous moves in it. They pupate there, pre-gnawing cradles in places of feeding. The specimens that live in flour glue balls from its particles and wait for the period of transformation into adults in them. About 3-4 generations of bread grinders develop over the year, which can only be found in kitchen supplies, on windows, walls, and the floor of a room with a large accumulation of them. With insignificant amounts, insects are hidden in the food substrate and do not show out. Bread grinders do not disdain tea, coffee, medicinal plants, book bindings, compound feed, crushed grain mixtures; leave a lot of moves in them and put off waste products.
Bugs entering the kitchen
How does a bread grinder get into the kitchen? Most often, the owners themselves bring it in packages with purchased products. Most likely, the groats on the shelves of the stores were initially infected due to non-compliance by the manufacturer with sanitary standards for the processing and storage of products. Thus, having traveled a long way from the warehouse to the store, those who are in the same bag with the cereal bugs get to the final consumer. How to get rid of flour bugs in the kitchen?
Red-headed fly-eater - harmful for kitchen supplies
Do not mind taking stocks of kitchen cabinets with a gingerbread cookie - a small insect (1.5-2.5 mm in length) of a rusty-yellow color, characterized by hard wings, a body covered with silky hairs and a widely spaced whisker. Like a grain grinder, he prefers to “work” on an industrial scale and lives in mills, cereals and animal feed plants, bakeries, and pasta factories. It feeds on cereals, rotting flour and grain, provided that the moisture content of the latter is not lower than 15%. During the year, under favorable conditions, 4 generations can develop. The life expectancy of adults is 6 months. Gathering in groups, the mukoed increases the humidity of products, pollutes them with excrement and shells from larvae. How to get rid of flour bugs in the kitchen?
Flour Khrushchak: habitat features
The most common resident of the kitchen area is the Surinamese flour- eater (otherwise, the flour Khrushchak) - a reddish-red beetle characterized by small (3-4 mm) sizes, short antennae, a strong carapace that protects the back and head and small underdeveloped wings.
At a favorable temperature of + 23-25 ° C, the female beetle is capable of producing 4 generations per year, laying 300-350 eggs at a time. In the most prolific individuals, such an indicator can reach 1000. Eggs of flour flour (short-oval, white) in croup are difficult to detect, since they are covered with a sticky liquid that quickly absorbs particles of flour and dust. Although the female is so prolific that she produces masonry wherever possible: on products, fabrics, in crevices of cabinets. Hatched larvae immediately creep out in search of food, easily gnaw through packages and settle in stocks of cereals and flour - the most preferred product. Somewhat pleased with the fact that this type of insect independently regulates its numbers. With a significant increase in it, adults and larvae eat eggs and pupae.
The accumulations of the mucoeater can significantly spoil food reserves. For example, in case of mass infection, flour becomes dirty, lumpy, smells bad, unpleasant in taste and generally unsuitable for consumption. Products damaged by a hrusch are dangerous to human health and can cause an allergic reaction, dysbiosis, and even poisoning. How to get rid of bugs in the kitchen?
How to get rid of food moth?
An unpleasant surprise in the kitchen is the detection of food moths. The insect does not spread as actively as its “colleagues”, but it produces eggs in the most unexpected, often inaccessible places.
The presence of a winged pest can be determined by a thorough inspection of the premises. On the walls and under the ceiling you can see the gray-brown cocoons; pinkish caterpillars are easily seen in infected flour and cereals. Such products are unsuitable for consumption, so you have to part with them. You should also say goodbye to food moth using one of the following methods.
Flour bugs in the kitchen: ways to fight
If small pests are found in cereals and flour, measures should be taken to destroy them immediately, without giving time for breeding and development of hatched individuals. How to get rid of bugs in cereals and flour in the kitchen?
One of the effective ways to kill a pest is to freeze infected products in a freezer. Slightly damaged cereals can be calcined in the oven at a temperature of 100-110 ° C for 10-15 minutes, after having sieved them. For preventive purposes, it is recommended to warm any cereals purchased in the oven, as they may already be infected by the pest. It is easy to remove bugs from beans and peas, which are required to fill with salt water for several minutes. When the insects emerge, the water needs to be drained, and the clean legumes should be dried on a dry cloth. In case of severe damage, it is better to throw away the products. How to get rid of bugs in the kitchen cabinet in other ways?
About the order in the kitchen cabinets
The operation to get rid of bugs will be considered completely completed if you clean up the kitchen cabinets. To do this, all shelves should be completely freed from the contents, remove the remnants of spilled cereals, pour cracks in boiling water, wipe the surface with vinegar solution (per liter of water - a tablespoon of vinegar). Then it is recommended to leave lockers for a day to dry. In the meantime, it is necessary to tidy up the containers for cereals: wash them with a solution based on laundry soap, and then treat them with boiling water. The tissue bags in which the cereals were stored should be treated with a salt solution and dried without rinsing.
Pyrethrum to the rescue
How to get rid of flour bugs in the kitchen? To avoid reinfection by bugs, it is recommended to sprinkle shelves on the shelves with powdered pyrethrum, a natural organic insecticide that is safe for humans and pets, but a deadly poison for insects. Produced from Dolmatian chamomile, this tool blocks the movement of nerve impulses, which is why insects quickly paralyze and die. Processing of problematic surfaces can also be carried out using a spray gun, into which pour the pyrethrum dissolved in water. The advantage of a natural product is its penetration: the powder is easy to deliver to inaccessible places. Its only drawback is the inability to destroy insect eggs. Therefore, repeated treatments aimed at getting rid of the hatching generation are recommended.
How to get rid of a bug bug in the kitchen using folk methods?
Common garlic and bay leaves are good repellers for kitchen bugs. It is enough to simply place them on shelves of cabinets or in containers with cereals and flour.
Insects also do not tolerate the nutmeg aroma, therefore it is recommended to pour the seasoning on the adhesive plaster and attach it to the inner walls of the cabinet.
Preventative measures
With cereal bugs it is quite difficult to fight, so their invasion of the kitchen is better to prevent. In order to prevent pests such as a bread grinder, red-headed fly-eater, and flour mealworm, it is recommended to constantly maintain cleanliness in the kitchen, regularly ventilate the room and ensure that the air humidity is moderate. After all, moisture is an ideal medium for breeding bugs.
Grain is a product that every housewife always tries to buy with a margin. Consumed slowly, rarely checked for integrity and cleanliness. And at this time, harmful bugs can multiply and develop in it.
Therefore, it is not recommended to purchase flour and cereal in large quantities. Immediately after the purchase, you should check the products for the presence of beetles, refrigerate them in the freezer for 24 hours and then pour them into hermetically sealed containers. It is not recommended to store cereals in packages, because bugs can easily gnaw them.
It is advisable to keep dried fruits and nuts in the refrigerator. Periodically, cereals and flour should be checked for the presence of insects in them, sprinkled onto a dry surface for ventilation. The dishes in which cereals are stored should be scalded with boiling water during washing and wiped dry.