5 Proven Ways to Eliminate Weevils from Your Rice

Rice weevils can infest your kitchen cabinets and eat rice from your containers, lay their eggs on it and even poop on it. Thoroughly disgusted? Here’s how to get rid of them!

The sight of a small reddish-brown beetle crawling in your rice containers might be disgusting for most people. These bugs are called rice weevils. They are responsible for causing massive damage to rice grains by eating them and chewing holes in them to lay eggs. 

Therefore it is crucial to remove these pests away from your homes to make sure that food stays hygienic and safe. 

This article will explain a few tricks that you can try to eliminate the population of these troublesome creatures from your homes and to prevent them from coming back. 

What Are Rice Weevils?

As the name suggests, these weevils are primarily found in areas where rice is stored. They are small beetles that show an average growth of 0.125 inches. 

Their bodies are black to reddish brown in color and are topped with a few yellow spots. The rice weevil larvae are legless with a round and white body. Both the larva and adult rice weevil have prolonged snouts with chewing parts. 

The adult rice weevil is good at flying (unlike other weevils) and actively chews into the grain from the outside to create hollow cavities for laying eggs. 

The female weevils can lay around 300 eggs in multiple-grain holes. The larva grows inside the grain itself. 

Where Do Rice Weevils Come From?

Many entomologists claim that rice weevils originated from the Indo – Himalayan part of the world. They traveled to different parts of the globe through the trade in rice. Now you can find these weevils across all parts of the United States, especially North Carolina and Tennessee.

How Do Weevils Get in Rice?

Rice weevils usually attack crops in the field before they are even harvested. Once these grains are harvested and transferred to a food godown, these weevils get transferred as well. 

From the storage, they travel to stores where the food products are sold, and from there, it makes their way to your house. Once they enter the house, they can easily creep their way into their primary food sources, like rice and other grains. 

How To Get Rid of Grain Weevils?

Store food in airtight containers

If you start storing food in plastic containers, these weevils won’t be able to reach them. 

However, there is a high chance that they were already present when you purchased the grains. But this will prevent them from moving to other food items in the kitchen or the house. 

Freeze the weevils out

As soon as you buy food like flour, spices, oats, etc., keep them in the freezer for around four days. 

This will kill these granary weevils present in them and will prevent their infestation. After a few days, store them in your usual kitchen containers.  

Keep the infested grains in sunlight

If you find that a good amount of food grains are already affected by the weevil, put them out in the sunlight for a few hours. 

This method will help to rid of the beetles as they like dark spaces and do not prefer to be exposed to sunlight.  

Use bay leaves and other home remedies

Keeping bay leaves in rice containers is one of the best ways to get rid of these insects. You can also keep the whole turmeric and garlic in the containers to stop the weevils from attacking them. 

Heating the food grains

If you find small quantities of food grains being infested by weevils, heat them at around 140 degrees F for about 15 minutes, this will kill all the weevils present in that source. 

However, this technique is not applicable to large quantities of infested food. For that, you might need to dispose of the entire batch.

Preventing Grain Weevils

Once you get rid of these weevils, you must take proper steps to ensure that they don’t reappear. 

Therefore, you must immediately empty your cupboards, containers, and other places like tiny wall crack because this is where weevils usually enter from.

Since these shelves are in the kitchen, do not use any insecticides. To keep them from coming, you can start using airtight containers to store grains and food.

Frequently Asked Questions

Wrap Up

Dealing with weevils can be a big headache, especially if you have a large infestation in the house. 

Use the hacks and ideas mentioned in the article to make sure that these weevils are eliminated from your homes and that they do not ever return. 

Thank you for reading the article.