Grain Beetle Control: How To Get Rid of Grain Beetles

This page is a general grain beetle control guide. Using the products and methods suggested, you will get control of grain beetles. Follow this guide and use the recommended products, and we guarantee 100% control over grain beetles.

Have you recently opened up your pantry to try to prepare a recipe or grab a snack and saw a reddish-brown-looking bug crawling around on your countertops or in your cupboards? Or, even worse, flying around in your kitchen? These are grain beetles, and they're more common than you think.

Grain beetles are a rising problem in households, grocery stores, and commercial food packing facilities. Most measure between 2 and 3 mm in length and appear reddish-brown or dark brown, but the larvae phase is the most damaging since they like to burrow into softer packaging like cardboard to get to their meals.

Grain beetles may have invaded your home by being inadvertently pre-packaged at commercial food packing facilities, where they feast on grains. Once in the home, they will be on the hunt for even more varieties of foods and places to lay eggs. While they enjoy grains, grain beetles will eat just about anything—from furniture to clothing, fabric, and wallpaper.

If you have an infestation of grain beetles in your home, action must be taken quickly to prevent the risk of significant damage and contamination. Follow our DIY grain beetle control guide below, which has everything you need to know to get rid of grain beetles quickly and affordably.

Identification

Before treating grain beetles, you must properly identify the pest and ensure you’re dealing with grain beetles and not some other invader. Below, we'll describe some common characteristics that set grain beetles apart from other pantry pest species.

• Grain beetles are small (2 to 3 mm long) bugs that can be reddish-brown or black.
• Grain beetles have a head, thorax, abdomen, and six legs.
• They have wings and can fly (although they don’t have wings).
• A trait that makes grain beetles stand out is their six saw-like projections on their thorax.
• Grain beetle larvae are small white grub-like bugs that live inside food items and actively eat and contaminate them.
• Based on their name, grain beetles seem to enjoy living in containers of flour, cereal, and rice.
• There are two main types of grain beetles: merchant grain beetles, which can fly, and sawtoothed grain beetles, which don't fly. Both species look nearly identical but differ only slightly in the shapes of their head.
• The saw-toothed grain beetle has a more rectangular-shaped head, while the merchant grain beetle's head is more triangular-shaped. Grain beetles are also similar to another common pantry pest, weevils, which are also beetles.

Use the image and description above to help you correctly identify grain beetles in your home. If you aren't completely sure, contact us, and one of our representatives will assist you with proper identification.

Inspection

Once you have confirmed that you are dealing with grain beetles, you will need to inspect your pantry and kitchen to pinpoint where the infestation is concentrated. During the inspection, you will focus on finding this problem "hotspots" where grain beetles are commonly found.

Where To Inspect

Since most grain beetles are found near food goods, start your inspection in these areas. This includes looking in kitchens and garages. Look inside cabinets, shelves, pantries, and wherever food goods are stored. Search inside packaging for cereals, pasta, starches, spices, herbs, herbs, rice, and every food package in your food pantry.

What To Look For

You’re looking for contaminated items with adult grain beetles and larvae grain beetles. Grain beetle larvae look like small white grubs with brown heads. If you find an item where you can see many adults and larvae crawling, you will have found the source of the infestation. This is where you will apply the treatment.

Treatment

Once you have confirmed grain beetle activity, it is time to begin treatment. Remember to read all product labels, follow the application instructions on these labels, and stay safe by wearing personal protective equipment (PPE).

To control grain beetle infestations, you will need to empty your entry pantry, discard all of your stored products, conduct a thorough vacuuming and wipe down all the shelves, then apply Novacide Aerosol to kill adult grain beetles and halt the development of eggs and larvae. Finally, placing Pro-Pest Pantry Moth and Beetle Traps to capture any grain beetles lingering around after treatment would be best.

Step 1: Preliminary Cleanup and Vacuuming

Begin by throwing away all the food goods found in the pantry. If you find one contaminated product, the probability is that many other food products will be infested, and you won’t be able to tell which are contaminated. It is best to throw away all food goods and start from scratch.

Next, use a vacuum to clean the corners and crevices inside the cabinets, shelves, pantries, or the areas where food goods are stored. Next, take a cloth soaked in soapy water and clean the inside of your top, bottom, sides, corners, cabinets, shelves, and pantries. While cleaning take a toothpick and clean out the pegs where the screws are located, these areas are notorious for collecting eggs.

Finally, use caulking to seal off or close any cracks and crevices inside the cabinets, pantries, and shelves.

Ensure all food goods are cleared off the cabinets, shelves, and pantries and thrown away, and the cabinets are empty before applying products.

Step 2: Apply Novacide Aerosol

Novacide is a dual-action insecticide in that it kills adult Grain Beetles and also comes with an IGR (or Insect Growth Regulator) that will prevent the undeveloped stages of grain beetles (eggs, pupa, larvae) from turning into adults. The best part about Novacide is its residual effect, as it can remain effective for up to 7 months, so you don't have to apply it often.

Novacide comes in an aerosol spray. To use simply point and spray and apply by spraying 1 to 2 inches separated by a couple of inches. Spray the back of shelves along cracks and crevices in short, quick bursts so that a fine mist is applied.  Next, spray along the baseboards and flooring of your pantry, kitchen, carpeting, and the baseboards of the areas adjacent to your kitchen in a downward sweeping motion. 

Do not let people or pets enter areas treated until 2 to 4 hours have passed.

Step 3: Pro-Pest Pantry Moth and Beetle Traps

The Pro Pest Pantry Moth and Beetle Trap is a ready-to-use, pesticide-free trap that uses a pheromone-scented glue board to trap grain beetles. Remove the protective paper from the pre-baited glue and fold the trap into a tent shape.

Place the trap on shelving where it will not get smashed and is out of the reach of children and pets. The trap’s pheromone bait will lure grain beetles to the trap, where they will get stuck in the glue. This is a great, low-effort tool that will last between 60 and 90 days. One trap will cover around 100 square feet.

Prevention

Once you have eliminated the grain beetle infestation, you must carry out preventative measures to ensure they don't make a return.  

• Many times, ripped packaging or packaging with holes and punctures means that the product is already infested. By avoiding these packages, you will prevent an infestation. Also, start transferring your food goods from their original packaging into airtight plastic or metal containers to prevent an infestation or to isolate an existing one.
• Also, try to get in the habit of buying just a week's worth of food supplies. This way, you will prevent storing food products for months, opening up the possibility of an infestation, especially if they are left undisturbed in the dark. Finally, you can use Pro-Pest Pantry Traps throughout the year to monitor activity and stop infestations before they begin.

Key Takeaways

What are Grain Beetles?

• Grain beetles are a common pantry invader notorious for creating large infestations and contaminating food. 
• Grain beetle larvae are the most damaging phase of the grain beetle life cycle because they burrow into softer packaging like cardboard to infest food items.
• Grain beetles come from a dried food item infested at the local grocery store or the processing facility where it was being packaged. 

How To Get Rid of Grain Beetles

• We recommend thoroughly emptying and cleaning your pantry before applying Novacide Aerosol and placing Pro-Pest Pantry and Beetle Traps to control grain beetle infestations.

Preventing Grain Beetle Reinfestation

• Practices like reducing clutter, checking newly bought items from the store, and storing food in hard plastic containers can reduce the likelihood of a future grain beetle infestation.