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Subject:
From:
Rebecca Clayton <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 30 Aug 1995 11:23:33 -0400
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Charlene (and others with food-stashing ferrets):
 
Tips on meal worm and meal moth infestations:
 
August seems to be the peak season for this sort of thing.  You've done the
most important thing already: clean up all the available food stashes.
Next thing is, store all pet food and grain-based dry people food (like dry
cereal, flour, corn meal, etc.) in air-tight containers (plastic or glass
containers with tight lids) to keep the insects from laying their eggs in
these food sources.
 
There's a good chance that the supplies of pet and people food you have on
hand may have already been colonized.  You can kill the eggs and tiny
larvae by putting the products in your freezer for 48 hrs or more.
Personally, I would do this rather than throwing away potentially
contaminated stuff, unless there are visible insects crawling around in it,
but then, I'm an entomologist, and insects are my pals.
 
These stored-grain product insects are easy to get rid of through these
precautions (not like cockroaches or termites or fleas), and they happen to
everyone now and then.  I recently opened a hall closet, and a huge swarm
of Indian meal moths flew out.  Seems Ron (the other human in my house)
stashed an open 40 lb bag of sunflower seeds there and forgot about it.
 
Good luck; and don't worry. If you eliminate the food sources, these
insects will die out and be gone for good.
 
Rebecca
[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 1301]

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