Are Weevils Harmful? Do They Bite Humans?

Weevils can find their way inside any open grains or food in the pantry and sometimes even in packaged foods. But are they harmful, or are they just a nuisance?

Weevils are a threat to the stored food grains in your kitchen cabinet. These tiny insects love to reside in food grains and lay eggs. 

But have you wondered how harmful is the presence of these insects in your food? If yes, then we are here to tell you that they aren’t dangerous.

Read on to know more about what damage they can cause.  

Are Weevils Dangerous? 

Weevils have elongated snouts with mouthparts to chew and bite their food. They use these to bore holes into grains, eat them and lay their eggs inside them.

Despite their ability to carve cavities in grain kernels, these insects are not harmful to humans. They only cause problems with stored grains. 

Are They Poisonous?

Weevils are not poisonous for humans and pets. However, due to their habit of nesting and breeding in stored food grains, you might sometimes find a few of these in your food. 

Eating them on purpose is probably not a good idea, but accidentally consuming a weevil will not cause any harm to the human body. 

Do They Carry Disease?

As mentioned in the section above, weevils are not harmful to humans and do not carry diseases. 

Finding a rice weevil in your grain container is nothing to panic about. However, if the batch is infested by many of these weevils, it is advisable to replace it immediately. 

Do They Bite?

Weevils cannot sting or bite, and they are harmless to humans. These insects use their solid mandibles for chewing and creating cavities in food grains to lay eggs. 

Also, these insects do not cause any harm to your wooden furniture; they only infest food grains in the house. 

However, there are instances when people have claimed to be bitten by them. It is likely that this happened when the female weevil was looking for a place to lay her eggs.

Are Acorn Weevils Harmful to Humans?

Acorn weevils are small insects with brown-colored bodies and long snouts. Unlike the granary weevil, these insects drill holes in acorns to lay eggs. 

These little insects are not harmful to humans. Also, like the other weevils, they cannot damage your furniture or carpets.

However, they can cause significant damage to your acorn plantation.

How to Kill Acorn Weevils?

Since acorn weevils mostly emerge from the soil during the summer season, here are two ways that you can use to kill these insects:

Freeze them out

Collect fresh acorns and refrigerate them to delay the grub growth; after that, put these acorns in the freezer to kill them. 

Boil the acorns

Collect and soak a batch of infested acorns for 20 minutes in 120° Fahrenheit hot water. This excessive heat will kill them inside the acorns. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

Wrap Up 

Weevils are harmless creatures, but they can cause severe damage to the food in homes. 

Although having a few of them in your food is fine, you must know how to control these insects from infesting your homes. We hope this article will help you with it. 

Thank you for reading the piece.