You may not be conscious of this, but your box of cigars may be at risk to a tobacco-eating predator. Connoisseurs of cigars have been horrified and repelled at discovering their precious cigars invaded with Lasioderma Serricorne, or more commonly, tobacco beetles! This terrible insect feasts on your valued cigars, and could not care less if they are cheap drugstore brands, or imported delights.

So where does this tobacco beetle come from, and what exactly is it? Well, the tobacco beetle pretty much exists in any place where tobacco exists as well, where it will infest and feed upon the plants. Tobacco beetles thrive in hot climates, where most of the world’s tobacco is cultivated, especially in the Caribbean. When tobacco beetles reproduce, they give birth to larvae that are white and up to 4 mm long, which later proceed to devour their way through tobacco leaves. The tobacco beetle has been proven very highly resistant to insecticides, despite all efforts to rid crops of this dreaded pest crops by tobacco producers.

Many cigar enthusiasts have opened their cigar boxes to find that their cigars have been eaten through, because the tobacco beetle has survived into the finished product. If there are small puncture holes in your cigars, then chances are, you have detected the presence of a tobacco beetle. The holes can make an average cigar resemble a flute.

If your cigars are infested with a tobacco beetle, what can you do? Well, your microwave may be the answer, research has shown that it could be the best defense in destroying tobacco beetle larvae. However, before using your microwave, remove and dispose of any infested cigar from your collection then the rest of your cigars can be treated. In order to rid the remaining of your collection of this pest, you should make sure to microwave your cigars together, never individually. Warm the cigars up in the microwave for a good three minutes, then throw them in the freezer. After freezing them for 24 hours, remove them and allow them to thaw at room temperature and then once they have thawed completely, you can place them in a humidor. This treatment has been successfully used in treating infested cigars. So before removing a cigar from the humidor to be smoked, examine each one individually and then if it shows no evidence of infestation, it is safe to smoke.