Something buzzing you at your local store?

 

           

So yesterday I was shopping here in Gilbert and noticed this lovely little set of bug traps. These traps catch a variety of pests but are designed to capture stored product pest such as Indianmeal Moths to beetles to flies. Depending on the type of store,  food stores probably at greater risk for grain damage and other types of warehouses which may contain flowers, seeds or hides.

Stored product pest are commonly referred to as pantry pests, if located in a product purchased from a store recently you can contact the retailer who then contacts the manufacturer and the possibility of the lot being recalled or destroyed is good. I’m a big fan of freezing the items and then putting it into Tupperware or some type of sealed container. Stored Product pest damage approximately 10% of the world’s annual production of stored grains, In 1981 the loss was was estimated to over 1 Billion dollars in the U.S. Remember by the time you see the flying adults it’s probably to late, the larva are the ones to catch (they eat and damage) the adults only want to reproduce.

         

By the way there are plenty of different types of pests that eat this type of food, we are only scratching the surface with these two moths. Have you seen something like this, what would you do if you brought it home and it was infested? Do you have a scary of unique story about stored product pests? Comment below.