How to Get Rid of Drugstore Beetles

Drugstore beetles are commonly known as biscuit beetle or bread beetle. You may find these biscuit beetles in almost all parts of the world, but they thrive in temperate climates. They feed on spice, household food, horn, leather, hair, and wool. As their common name indicates, they also infest on dry pharmaceutical products like drugs. 

If you see these types of beetles in your food, scrub your kitchen area and cupboards thoroughly using a strong detergent. If you don’t see any infestation here, check your heating ducts, carpet edges, stuffed animals, leather products, and woollens. They can also persist in the wall cavities and other concealed areas of the house where there’s a sufficient supply of organic matters.

If you want to manage small pests like the drugstore beetles more efficiently, the best thing to do is get to know this insect group first, understand how they thrive, and what household conditions allow them to breed.

What Are Drugstore Beetles?

Drug store beetles are reddish-brown and measure about 3.5 mm long. They’re cylindrical and have a small, thin pair of three-segmented antennae. They also have deep pits on their wing covers responsible for their grooved appearance. Their larvae have a peculiar letter C shape and cream colour. 

They belong to the anobiids species. They’re notorious for causing economic losses and tremendous damage to stored and post-harvest seeds and grains, plant-derived products and items, and packaged food products. Apart from that, they also elicit anger, annoyance, and disgust among people who find them feeding on their stored goods.

These small reddish-brown beetles usually have strong jaws, allowing them to chew on lead, aluminum foil, tin, books, and wooden objects. If you have a swarm of these pesky pests infesting your pantry, the best way to control them is to find the food source of all the infestation and throw away the infested items. Search the entire pantries but start with the packages that have been in your cupboard for a long time. After that, check all opened packages like spices, nuts, dried fruits, flour products, and even bird seed and dog food. 

To help you know and understand more about this insect, here are specific pieces of information about them. 

How to Identify/Appearance

Bettles come in various colours, sizes, and shapes. While some have slender and long bodies like the click beetles, others have rounded or oval shapes like the June bugs and lady beetles. Some beetles look like spiders. You can tell drugstore beetles apart from other kinds of beetles for their peculiar-shaped body. 

Their cylindrical shape associated them with cigarette beetles that look exactly like them. They appear reddish or solid brown. The drugstore beetle also has a pair of thin three-segmented antennae. Their wing covers have deep pits that give them a striated look. They have fine hairs that run down their wing covers. They also measure at least 3.55 mm long. 

Life cycle and habits/diet/habitat

The female drugstore beetle can give birth to over 100 eggs at once. These eggs are difficult to see because of their size and pearl white colour. They hide their eggs in the food source. These eggs will hatch for as short as ten days. The newly hatched eggs measure around five mm long and resemble a ‘C’ shape. These immature beetles become adults after the female drugstore beetle pupates for 12 to 18 days. They have a lifespan of only 14 to 65 days. 

They also thrive outdoors and in an area with warm climate. They can survive anywhere for as long as they have a heated shelter. Different commercial sites offer ideal environmental conditions for these pests to propagate. These include flour mills, storage warehouses, and pet food and cereal manufacturing facilities. This insect is heavily attracted to light and is also an expert flier, making it easy for them to invade homes.

Drugstore beetles also feed on different kinds of food, causing severe damage to flour, seeds, and stored grains. Their indiscriminate diet includes drugs, hair, wool, leather, manuscripts, books, spices, and foods. They bore holes through wood and other wooden objects and can penetrate lead sheets, aluminum foil, and tin. This makes stored food highly susceptible to infestation. 

What damage they do

They’re known to cause severe damage to bindings of books and leaves. They also cause damage to stored food and herbs. The beetle larvae chew on plants, herbs, and food, boring holes through packaging and damaging the product. Infested food will no longer be usable.

How to Detect an Infestation

A drugstore beetle infestation at a distribution or food manufacturing facility will indeed be devastating for the owner. It can ruin their reputation and cause them irreparable loss in operating expenses and income. 

You’ll know that there’s an infestation if you see them boring holes through food packaging. If ingested, the drugstore beetle excrements can cause stomach, throat, and mouth irritation. This is precisely the reason why drugstore beetle-infested food should neither be consumed nor sold. 

They also bore holes through wood and inorganic materials like lead sheets, aluminum foils, and tin. If you see numerous holes through any of these materials, that’s a sign that there’s a drugstore beetle infestation. 

Museum owners also suffer from drugstore beetle infestation. This insect can chew on antlers, animal horns, paper, and books. This means that if you see your displayed artifacts destroyed or damaged, that’s a possible sign of infestation. It would help if you were careful as there are cases when even the most expensive or priceless museum artifacts also get chewed on. 

Homeowners will know there’s infestation if they see damage on packaged food products, post-harvest seeds and grains, and stored consumable items. If you see any of these items attacked by drugstore beetles, just throw them away. They’re unsafe to eat. 

Drugstore Beetle Treatment: How Can You Do It

Having drugstore beetles infesting your factory or home can be devastating. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about it. Here is a simple step-by-step guide to help you manage drugstore beetle’s presence in your area. 

Step 1: Never store exposed food items in pantries or shelves. 

Always keep your food in containers with tight-fitting lids. Make it a habit to vacuum and clean your storage areas, bins, and shelves. It will also help if you avoid mixing new and old products. Last, keep your food storage areas clean and dry. 

Step 2: Heat infested food items in small quantities.

Most of the time, it’s better to throw away items that drugstore beetle infests. However, it’s also possible to successfully eliminate these insects from the area of infestation by heating them in your oven. Heat in small quantities. The only downside of this practice is that it’s less sanitary. It also doesn’t guarantee that the food will remain edible. 

Step 3: Use appropriate insecticide.

Yes, you can use insecticides, but you have to be selective about it. The purpose is to control and manage these insects before they can cause an infestation. However, in extreme infestation cases, the best thing to do is call a pest control professional. They know what’s the best courses of action to take. 

Products to Use to Get Rid of Drugstore Beetles

If you’re not so keen on the natural way of getting rid of these insects, here are some products you can use. 

1. Pyrid Aerosol: This insecticide aerosol is ready to use. It’s often used as a crevice or crack treatment in pantries. You need to treat these crevices first because these beetles love to crawl and lay eggs in small spaces. 
2. Flex 10-10: Once done with pyrid aerosol, apply Flex 10-10 on the said crevices and cracks. This pyrethroid insecticide is so potent that it has a 30-day residual effect, killing drugstore beetles long after the actual application. 
3. Pheromone trap: This trap is equipped with sex pheromones to capture male drugstore beetles and lure male moths. Set this trap in your pantry or kitchen. 

Can You Prevent Drugstore Beetle Infestations from Recurring?

The answer to this is yes, you can prevent these drugstore beetle infestations from recurring. Here are some smart tips you can apply. 

Tip 1: Know what they’re feeding on. 

If you want to control the infestation of drugstore beetles,  the first thing you should do is find out what they’re feeding on. Most adult beetle emerge from their cocoons that are located near to the larva feeding ground. If you see these adult biscuit beetles in your pantry, it’s almost likely that they’re into bean, grain, cookie, flour, spice, or cereal. 

Tip 2: Remove things from your cabinets.

After identifying what these pests are feeding on, the next step is to remove anything stored in the cabinets where the infestation happened. At this point, you might notice the infestation is not that severe yet. In that case, carefully inspect containers and boxes for empty cocoons and white grub larvae. 

Tip 3: Throw out infested boxes.

Throw away anything you suspect as beetle-infested. If there are boxes that you want to keep, store them in plastic bags to see if an adult biscuit beetle emerges. If you will indeed see these adult beetles after two to three weeks, you know it’s time to let the boxes go.