Evil weevils

TomandBarbara

:eek: my cupboards have become infested by little mite thingies they are crawling all in my sealed containers of nuts!

any idea how to get rid WITHOUT having to chuck away all my nuts! I have about 20 containers of different nuts (whole, blanched and ground) which I can't afford to replace.

morwenna

Chuck them in the freezer?

kellitots

We had them too, I think they were in some old bags of flour made me feel right ill!

We ended up chucking everything out and disinfecting all the cupboards! Wish I would have thought to freeze the stuff. Although wouldn't there just be dead mites in the nuts, if you did that?

Extra protein I suppose..;)

TomandBarbara

chuck them in the freezer to kill em off? Suppose I could try then sieve the nuts so hopefully the little devils will dissapear through the sieve!?

yep extra protein! I must admit we've got an allotment and for ages our cabbages were infested by some kind of cabbage fly, took me ages to clean the leaves and knew I wouldn't be able to get rid of em all so just hoped the hot water killed them off!

t_obermory

Ok I've just found some tiny tiny bug type things in my porridge oats, they're literally only 1/2mm long. Checked my flour and no sign of anything in there, they're just in the oats. Should I be concerned that I've probably just eaten them in this mornings porridge?

Also can I get rid of them without having to chuck a full box of oats away, would it be repulsive to keep using it with them in it?

Thanks.

nesssie1702

Found an interesting article on psocids in the Environmental Health Journal

http://www.cieh.org/library/Knowledge/Food_safety_and_hygiene/JEHR/Psocid%20infestations.pdf.

It appears that autumn is the peak time for finding them in your flour! :eek:

nesssie1702

fanilow wrote: »

can you get these bugs in your fridge? Tiny little brown specks in the bottom compartment and in the door, I thought it was some sort of dust but then I found them in boxes on top of the fridge too and they were moving.Is an antibacterial kitchen cleaner strong enough as I didn`t want to put anything too toxic in the fridge really,?

Try cleaning your fridge out with a solution of Bicarbonate of soda and water. Nothing toxic in that.

jacquiwantstosavemoney

I've been giggling at these threads...yuk, weevils.. but it reminds me of an episode at home years ago. I was in the front room while my younger sister (late teens) was in the kitchen with her (slightly older, but just as daft )boyfriend. They were discussing making gingerbread men. I called out that "I wouldnt use that flour..its been out there for years..it might have weevils in it"..
I then heard my sister tell her fella "jacqui thinks we should give it a miss... there might be weasles in the flour".....he simply replied "ok".... like they wouldnt SEE weasles!!!!!!

Still makes me laugh!

motherkitty

I had a problem with these last year and couldn't get rid of them in spite of cleaning the cupboard right out and washing everything.
In the end I had a change round so that my flour etc was kept in a different cupboard. That fooled em and, touchwood, I haven't had any bother since!

sliding_doors

KathrynPenguin wrote: »

As said above bung the flour in the freezer for 24 hours before you put it in the cupboard. I had loads of trouble with these until I started doing that, now any flour that comes into the house goes straight in the freezer. Problems really are over.

This might seem like an obvious question but if I put the flour in the freezer for 24 hours do I then have to empty the flour out of its paper bag to stop it absorbing the moisture?

Im just getting into breadmaking but unfortunately my nearest Lidl is 10 miles away so I went and stocked up about 30kg of flour! After reading all these threads I really need to work out how to store it before the weevils hatch.