Food moth: how to get rid of this insect?

How to get rid of food moth in short time? In order for the pest control to be successful, it is necessary to carry out complex processing of the apartment, destroying not only the larvae, but also the butterflies that produce them. Preventive measures aimed at preventing re-infection of the apartment with this insect will also be useful.

How to recognize a pest?

Ognevka, or as it is popularly called “food moth”, is a pest that, being in the caterpillar phase, eats groceries, nuts and dried fruits. In fact, there are several species of this butterfly, and each of them has its own characteristics. But in general, any food moth will be quite inconspicuous, and the faded drawing on the wings helps her in this.

But the larvae of these pests, as they say, on one face. They look like caterpillars, whose body is painted in pale yellow or pale pink. Being in this phase of development, food moth leads a hidden lifestyle, it constantly lives in a bag with food products and crawls out of it only during pupation. It is at this stage of their existence that thick caterpillars can be detected with the naked eye - they will crawl along kitchen surfaces, most often along the walls of the cabinets in which they parasitize.
Adult butterflies no longer spoil food, but only mate and thereby increase the size of the colony.

On a note! It is for this reason that to fight against food moth, destroying only winged individuals, is useless! Indeed, at the same time, caterpillars already live and parasitize somewhere in the kitchen table, which spoil your food supplies!

Where does food moth live and what does it eat?

Absolutely all groceries are attractive for food moths and they can start in food products such as:

• bread and any bakery products, including breadcrumbs and ordinary crackers;
• absolutely any cereals and grain;
• flour and products thereof, for example, pasta;
• sugar;
• cocoa;
• biscuit;
• nuts and dried fruits;
• mild spices, etc.

At the first stage of infection, it is quite difficult to identify parasites, since the caterpillars will be in the products. Their presence in cereals and flour will be evidenced by small dark lumps and scraps of cobwebs - this is part of the cocoon that larvae braid themselves in the process of parasitization. If the pest has chosen a bag with nuts, then there will be neat small holes on them, and when the shell is broken, the same caterpillar will be inside.

Ways to fight

In order to get rid of food moths, an integrated approach is needed, and flying insects and caterpillars should be destroyed.

Important! Some underestimate the harm from butterflies and fight only with larvae. But this is actually wrong! In a short period of time, only a flying female is able to lay about 160 eggs, of which in 6-7 days new caterpillars will be born!

1. First of all, it is necessary to identify the source of infection. Go through all the food supplies, sprinkle the groats, sift the flour, review the nuts for the integrity of the shell. Pay special attention to products that have been stored for quite some time.
2. If a source of development of larvae is discovered, it should be processed or destroyed without fail. Thus, you can get rid of the main part of insect pests.
3. The butterflies that they managed to lay, and the newly hatched larvae, remaining in the nightstands and cabinets of the flying butterflies, are destroyed, as a rule, with aerosol insecticides. Moreover, these preparations can be sprayed only after all food and utensils have been removed from the kitchen.
4. And the last one is prevention, following the rules of which you are guaranteed to protect your home from re-infection.

Chemicals

On the shelves of shops there are a huge number of insecticides designed specifically against these insects. It can be aerosols or solid-form preparations - tablets and powders.

The following chemicals against food moths have proven themselves well:

• • Armol - this drug will help you get rid of adult flying insects, while it will act on them instantly;

• • Raptor - this tool is also quite effective against food moths. Aerosol can be used on the kitchenspraying it on wooden and other surfaces. It has a prolonged action, the period of which is about 12 months;
  • Antimole "Raid" - this tool allows you to destroy any kind of moth that lives in your house, including food. The drug can be sprayed on clothes, carpets, furniture and kitchen surfaces. Valid throughout the year.
  • Combat "SuperSpray" - has proven itself in the fight against various insect pests, both flying and crawling. Using this product is as simple as all the previous ones: the solution is sprayed onto kitchen surfaces, in corners and in places where moths accumulate.

Using these aerosols, the flying part of the population is destroyed. During processing, it is necessary to observe elementary rules of personal safety:

• put on a mask;
• protect eyes with special glasses;
• Do not smoke or eat during treatment.

All tenants and pets should also be removed from the premises. Make sure that the poisonous substance does not enter the food.

Interesting fact! Larvae of food moths can live in the absence of food for a whole month. They only tolerate poorly the absence of moisture and sunlight.

Physical methods of struggle

In order for the food moth to disappear, everything means of struggle are good. A lot of help in this is provided by physical methods based on mechanical action, thermal and repellent. Warming infected products in the oven at high temperature, they destroy insect larvae. An adult, a flying insect, will help to cope with a fly swatter or a rolled newspaper.

Physical methods complement chemical ones, since it is necessary to deal with food moths in a comprehensive manner. For example, butterflies are easily destroyed with an aerosol. This drug will not affect the larvae, as they are hidden inside the products. Here sifting with a sieve or just frying the groceries at high temperature is perfect.
However, if there are a lot of caterpillars, then the infected products will have to be thrown away.
You can catch all flying pests with adhesive tape. A trap for food moth works the same way. It is designed on the principle of attracting insects using odors.

The most popular and popular pheromone traps are:

1. “Aeroxon” - this product can be placed on kitchen surfaces and even in close proximity to food products. The principle of its work is as follows: a pheromone bait attracts flying males, they fly by smell and sit on an adhesive surface, thus losing the ability to move. And as a result, the reproductive cycle of insects is interrupted, and, accordingly, the population stops growing.
2. "Raptor" - like the first instance, this tool is odorless, does not contain any toxic substances. Suitable for combating food moth indoors.
   

   Important! Do not forget about safety measures and do not store such a trap with medicines. After using this product, you need to wash your hands with soap, and if after contact with the adhesive surface on the skin there are traces of it, then ordinary vegetable oil will help get rid of them!

3. Globol is a pheromone trap that does not contain pesticides. Easy to use: just peel off the protective film and stick to any surface.
   

   Interesting fact! Moth larvae easily survive the heat, but hate the cold. A temperature below zero is disastrous for them.

Folk remedies

Folk remedies are good the fact that they are cheap and always available, but they are not very effective on their own. In the complex, they are quite a good help in the fight against the pest, since it is quite difficult to remove food moth from the first try.

You can wipe the shelves of kitchen cabinets with a weak solution of vinegar. You can also put a bag of lavender in a bag of cereal to expel the mole hidden in the products. How to get rid of an adult with the help of folk remedies? You can scare her away with odorous herbs and substances that moths are afraid of.

How to scare away?

The following herbs will help scare away moles:

• tansy
• sagebrush
• rosemary
• lavender.

These repellent plants are able to reliably protect your home from moths, and not only from food, but also from the clothes. Dry herbs must be bundled and laid out in kitchen cabinets and bedside tables. This remedy will act until its fragrance finally disappears, so try to catch this moment and change the old herbs to new ones in time.

For example, ordinary orange and lemon peels, which are enough to spread out in the corners of kitchen cabinets and cabinets, have proven themselves pretty well. As for the essential oils, they are very convenient to apply on cotton swabs and lay out on shelves in the pantry room.

If you are afraid that the intense aroma of essential oil is absorbed into cereals, then in this case the most common garlic comes to the rescue. Where this "fetid" vegetable is stored, the moth will not settle, and it will not affect the taste of your products.

How to lure?

You can use the exact opposite way, luring insects to a trap with an adhesive surface. The bait will be fresh bread, pastries and other groceries.

However, traps and repelling odors, these are just measures aimed at preventing insects from eating. If moths periodically get into the apartment in any way, then preventive measures are not enough.

Prevention

In order to prevent the penetration of a pest into your home, you need to understand in what ways it can penetrate the apartment. We talked about this in the article: Where does the mole in the house come from?

For prevention, the following rules must be strictly followed:

1. Carefully inspect all purchases for insect larvae. Moreover, it is best to inspect the purchased goods directly in the store, because, as a rule, cereals are sold in transparent bags.
2. Do not purchase products with a suspiciously low price. Quite often, the "promotional" becomes a product that has been spoiled even in the manufacturer’s warehouse or in the store itself. This is due to a violation of storage requirements. Therefore, in a cheap bag you can bring home not only cereals or sugar, but also a family of food moths.
3. Do not keep large stocks of cereals, flour and similar products in the house. Try to purchase products for one to two weeks.
4. Examine the house for the presence of the paths of penetration of moth butterflies into the house. It is likely that moths fly from apartment to apartment through the ventilation shafts. Therefore, it is necessary to close their holes with a fine mesh.
5. Periodically audit strategic stockpiles, without regret disposing of spoiled ones.
6. Keep all cereals and flour in tightly closed containers. And for this it is not necessary to buy special expensive dishes - an ordinary glass jar with a nylon cover is quite suitable

How to get rid of food moth easily and quickly, see in this video: