Rice Weevil Control: How To Get Rid of Rice Weevils

This page is a general rice weevil control guide. Using the products and methods suggested, you will get control of rice weevils. Follow this guide, use the recommended products, and we guarantee 100% control of rice weevils.

Have you discovered little black bugs in one of your pantry food items? It is likely a notorious pest called a rice weevil. They are small, dark-colored insects with little snout noses and a knack for infesting and contaminating stored dried foods.

No matter how clean you keep your kitchen, rice weevils can find their way in and begin to mark their territory. Their ability to reproduce is so high that getting rid of them from your home is a hassle once they have been spotted. If you have discovered a Rice Weevil infestation, you must act fast.

Rice weevils do not bite, sting, or transmit diseases, but they can contaminate food products. This amounts to a loss of profit for grocery stores, warehouses, and homeowners whose products are spoiled and ruined.

If you are worried about rice weevils in your pantry, follow this expert guide, which will show you how to get rid of them and clear out an infestation.

Identification

Before you can carry out a treatment approach to get rid of weevils, you need to make sure that you're dealing with rice weevils. Below, we will describe some common characteristics that set rice weevils apart from other pantry pest species.

• Rice weevils range between 3 to 4.6 mm in length.
• They have dark brown or reddish-brown to black bodies with lighter-colored patches found on the thorax and abdomen.
• Rice weevils differ from the similar-looking granary weevil, which is almost always a solid dark brown color.
• Rice weevils have long, distinct snouts that extend from their head.
• You can find rice weevils in flour, rice, and whole grain kernel foods.
• Rice weevil larvae look like small white grub-like worms.

Use the description and image above to help you properly identify rice weevils. If you are unsure, then contact us by phone, email, or in person at one of our store locations, and one of our pros will assist you with identification.

Inspection

After properly identifying the rice weevil, you need to know the areas that rice weevils are infesting. During the inspection, you will focus on finding these problems "hotspots" where rice weevils are commonly seen.

An important part of the inspection process is conducting a detailed look at all of your pantry-stored products. Finding the product they are infesting and throwing it out is crucial, but it is best to throw out everything after seeing the infested item so as not to leave any chance that rice weevils are in a product you deem safe.

Where To Inspect

Start by inspecting your food storage spaces. Check your pantries, shelves, cabinets, garages, and pet food storage areas. Inspect every product packaging containing pasta, starches, cereals, grains, flour, spices, herbs, and pet food packaging.

What To Look For

You're looking for infested food products and visible adult rice weevils or rice weevil larvae. If you find any container of food full of adult rice weevils or their larvae, then you can safely assume you have found the source of the infestation. Once you have determined the food product that is infested, this is where you will be focusing your treatment applications.

Treatment

Once you have confirmed rice weevil 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).

The best method to getting rid of rice weevils from your home and potential infestations in your pantry is tossing out all your stored dried food products, doing a detailed cleanup and vacuuming, then applying Novacide Aerosol to kill adult rice weevils and halt the development of eggs and larvae. Finally, it would be best if you placed Pro-Pest Pantry Moth and Beetle Traps to capture any straggler weevils.

Step 1: Preliminary Cleanup and Vacuuming

If you have found a rice weevil infestation in your pantry, we recommend throwing out every dried food item, old or new, that isn't in a tightly sealed glass or plastic container. It may be costly to lose all that stored food, but it's the best way to get rid of a weevil infestation.

Throw away all the food sources in the food storage areas where you found the contaminated package. The best policy is to throw away all the food goods since there's a good chance all of them are contaminated, and you will not be able to tell which ones are contaminated or not with the naked eye.

Once items are thrown away and your pantry is cleaned out, you should thoroughly vacuum it. The pantry shelves should be vacuumed from top to bottom, as well as the pantry floor and ceiling, if possible. Use a crevice or a brush to ensure that no areas are overlooked. Pay close attention to the edges of the shelves and the wall and floor junctures.

And finally, if you have noticed cracks or crevices inside the areas where the food goods are stored, use caulking to seal them, this will prevent the infestation from spreading.

Clear all food goods from the cabinets, shelves, or pantries where they are stored. Make sure these areas are completely empty before you apply any products.

Step 2: Apply Pyrid Aerosol

Pyrid Aerosol is a ready-to-use insecticide aerosol that is used as a flushing agent and is great for treating cracks and crevices inside pantries to get rid of weevils. To use it, remove the white applicator from the top of the can and replace it with the red straw-tip applicator.

Shake the can and then spray along the length of the cracks and crevices of your pantry shelving in quick bursts, usually at about 1 second of spray per foot.

Step 3: Apply Novacide Aerosol

Novacide is our top recommended insecticide to control weevils. It can kill adult weevils and comes with an IGR (or Insect Growth Regulator) that affects weevil larvae and eggs. 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 often.

Wear gloves, a safety mask, and protective eyewear, and apply a light mist of Novacide in short bursts in the crevices of your emptied pantry shelves where the shelving meets the wall. 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. Apply in any other places you may be suspicious of to be on the safe side.

Prevention

Once you have successfully gotten rid of the rice weevil infestation, you will need to carry out preventative measures to ensure they don't return to your pantry. Here are some measures to take to ensure rice weevils don't infest again:

• Start by regularly checking food packages before you buy them. Inspect the packages for possible tears, holes, or punctures. Many times, these packages will already have an infestation inside. Also, get in the habit of taking out the food products from their original packaging and putting them into tight-fitting plastic containers. By doing this, you can prevent future infestations and isolate a possible infestation to just one product if a package is already contaminated.
• Also, try to get in the habit of buying just a week's worth of food supplies to avoid overstocking your pantry. This way, you will prevent having food products stored for months on end, which can open 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 and stop adult rice weevils from infesting in the first place.
• We also highly recommend a preventative application of Novacide every 7 months for continued protection.

Key Takeaways

What is a Rice Weevil?

• Rice weevils are a common pantry pest known to contaminate pantries and create a large infestation with their egg-laying.
• Rice weevils are small, but they contribute to very large amounts of food waste, which costs homeowners and grocery stores hundreds in food damage.

How To Get Rid of Rice Weevils In Your Pantry

• Conduct a thorough inspection to locate the food sources the weevils have infested, and then thoroughly clean and vacuum your pantry and kitchen.
• Remember that to obtain complete control, you need to get rid of the source of the infestation. If one of your foods is contaminated, it would be wise to exercise precaution and toss out everything to eliminate the chances of re-infestation.
• Apply Novacide and Pyrid Aerosol to control rice weevil infestations. Reapply Novacide preventatively to reduce the chances of re-infestation.

Preventing Rice Weevil Reinfestation

• Avoid overstocking your pantries with excessive food to minimize infestation windows and potential damage.
• Examine and observe packaged dried goods for holes or tears in the packaging. Then, place foods in plastic or glass containers that can be air-sealed.