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Annual onslaught of icky winter moths now in full force
By adamg on Sat, 11/28/2015 - 6:01pm
Kevin Wiles Jr. shows us what happens when you leave a porch light on.
Reports are coming in from all over about the annual explosion in the winter-moth population.
As long as you're standing there, trying to figure out how to get in your house without bringing a ton of the bugs with you, why not count them and then fill out the annual survey by the Massachusetts Introduced Pests Outreach Project (since, yes, these things are not native, and only started showing up in the 1990s)?
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THEY'RE COMING FOR MY FLOUR!
Those bastards know when Holiday Cookie Season is about to start.
Relax
The winter moth caterpillar eats shoots and leaves.
Those little Mediterranean Flour Moths are the little mothy bastards you are concerned about. You can lure them in with sexy pheramone traps and stick those little moth Romeos to the wall!
I don't know what's more unappealing.
Larvae in the flour, or horny moths stuck on the walls.
Oh, larvae in the flour--no doubt.
And in the bars of chocolate you had in the pantry and in the unopened bag of walnuts from Whole Foods! They are such a scourge and despite frequent pantry clean outs, they just reappear, including more and more in unopened things like the bag of Rhode Island cornmeal I bought to make cornbread stuffing with. I hate them so much--would gladly take the little wall-clingers instead!
Oh and don't get me started on wool moths...
Good thing you left out the comma
I would be terrified of those moths if one of them eats, shoots and leaves like a certain panda does.
Reminds me of a recent Deadwood episode...
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves , all in about 5 minutes
Couldn't make our traditional...
... Thanksgiving morning pancakes this year because some sort of larvae showed up in our Aunt Jemima's mix.
I assume you didn't let them
I assume you didn't let them hatch & discover you had a bunch of little Aunt Jemimas flying around your pantry?
Hm. Maybe I won't throw away the 3 year old box of Betty Crocker cake mix, as I'd planned.
Back in our Georgia days....
... I opened a bag of cornmeal and had some weird creature fly out of it.
Georgia was also thew only place we've lived where we had clothes wrecked by clothes moths.
blurgh
Unfortunately, clothes moths are everywhere. We had them in Dorchester, as did everyone elseon our floor in the Chocolate Factory (YOU ARE ALL WARNED NOW).
Pantry moths!
You're going to need to get some pantry-moth traps - fortunately, you can find them on Amazon and they're fairly inexpensive.
I think I will buy a plastic container....
... to put the flour in. (We bought innumerable large plastic containers in Georgia -- lots of opportunity for insect attacks on just about every kind of unprotected foodstuff).
Gallon-Sized Glass Jars Are Even Better
Available in many grocery stores — filled with pickles!
But who can eat
even one gallon of pickles, let alone dozens of them?
Pickle eating contests!
You just have to find the right crowd, that's all!
You Can Buy Them Empty, But They're Cheaper With Pickles
Sealed bins for bulk buying
We keep the 25 lb bags of rice and flour in sealed bins (the giant "tupperware" kind you might buy to store dog food), and keep smaller amounts in handy sealing jars.
Although IKEA doesn't seem to have the larger size ones anymore: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70227986/
Ha!
I replied above before I saw this whole thread. Mostly this is my m.o. but it's not foolproof. I had the throw away a whole big jar of whole wheat flour a few weeks back because it was completely infested--and this had bought at WF, opened and immediately decanted into a clean, sealed jar so I can only think that the little buggers were already in it.
They're in all flour
(Ew, I know. Don't think about it too much)
A friend is a commercial baker and her protocol is to buy flour and put it in the freezer for a few days to kill the bastards, then it goes into a sealed, airtight jar.
And speaking from experience, if you find one pantry moth, you must stop and pitch EVERYTHING. They get into things you don't realize they can, and they can get into improbable places. So you have to examine everything for slight cottony cobwebs, and pitch anything that looks like it even might be compromised (obvs that trash bag goes out as soon as you're done w the clean out), and then you get the pheromone traps and eat vegetables for a month bc you're so sketched it by the notion of the infestation. Good luck to you.
This!!
I have embraced the freezer method wholeheartedly--I thinks that's the only guarantee.
mice and moths and other pantry monsters+ plug for a store!
Last winter, following the death of our beloved elderly cat (and with the snow driving all creatures great & small inside), we had our first run in with mice in years. We saved jars, put flour in the freezer (not a bad idea anyway, by the way, keeps it fresh), cleared out the kitchen storage section at Marshalls, started using my gran's breadbox for its real purpose instead of as a junk drawer. We mouseproofed our pantry.
The reason I'm writing this, though, is to recommend BMS Paper Company if anyone ends up in the same boat. I was able to get dirt cheap plastic storage buckets. We used the for storing baking stuff like pecans and chocolate chips, and they were also big enough for apples & potatoes-- I spiked too-small-for-mouse holes in it for ventilation.
SO! Support a local biz! http://www.bmspaper.com/
thanks, Adam
These winter moths present an active infestation. UMass Amherst has information on them here, https://ag.umass.edu/fact-sheets/winter-moth-identification-management.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot the typical home owner/resident can do, other than contact a certified arborist. A good arborist can spray trees with a non-chemical insecticides in March and early April when buds start to open and when they are most vulnerable to the winter moth caterpillars, which hatch at about the same time.
It seems that the moth migrated from Canada. Unfortunately, unlike Canada, we have no naturally occurring predators in MA.
Close the border
Donald Trump will keep them out.
non-chemical insecticide?
What exactly is that? (Everything is made of chemicals.)
i am a non chemical pesticide
i am a non chemical pesticide
That's what you think
Chemical bag!
Bacillus thuringiensis
Naturally occurring organic bacteria. You can spray your leaves with it.
E Coli are naturally occurring organic bacteria, too
Bacteria are also made of chemicals, just like we are.
I think the term you seek is "mostly harmless"? How about "relatively non-toxic"?
But what harm do they do?
It's too bad that Canada geese don't eat them. Those are the Canadian invaders I'd like to send back...
Just get me a cuppa from Diesel
Blame Canada. And my a hole husband who moved me to suburban hell and decided to spend several thousand dollars for special landscape lighting all around the house.
moths are somewhat more tolerable..
than their larval wormy progeny who chew up the leaves above our deck in May and poop excrement about the size of this "." like there is no tomorrow...it adds up....anyone wanna come over for a cook-out next Mem Day? mmmm...
Would a bug zapper help?
I have one in my house in Maine and it really does seem to help keep mosquitoes in check. I would savor the zaps of these moths if that would help to knock them down.