G 



CIRCULAR 6 35, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



The major portion of a generation of cigarette beetles completes 

 development during warm weather in about 50 to 60 days, and ordi- 

 narily two generations and a partial third generation occur annually 

 in the tobacco storages of Virginia and Xorth Carolina. This sea- 

 sonal occurrence of stages of the insect is illustrated in figure 3. 

 Normally there is a peak number of adult beetles during the latter 

 part of June, another about the middle of August, and a third but 

 smaller peak about October 1. When unusually warm weather occurs 

 late in the fall, this third brood may be large. The populations 

 of cigarette beetles found in tobacco warehouses depend upon a num- 

 ber of factors, the most important of which are temperature, relative 

 humidity, and the types, grades, and quantities of tobacco stored. 



Figure 3. — Seasonal occurrence of the stages of the cigarette beetle in Virginia and 

 North Carolina, based on laboratory life-history studies and trap records obtained in 

 tobacco warehouses from 1933 to 1939. 



CHARACTER OF INJURY AND FOOD HABITS 



Nearly all the injury inflicted by the cigarette beetle is caused by 

 the larvae. Food is not necessary to the normal life of the adults, and 

 all the damage caused by them is done as a means of escape from the 

 commodity in which they have pupated. Ordinarily it is necessary 

 for the adults to get out of the tobacco where they may fly about and 

 mate before the females lay their eggs. The beetle attacks all the prin- 

 cipal types of cigar, snuff, and cigarette tobaccos except burley and 

 Maryland. Infestations in the latter are very rare. It also attacks 

 most of the manufactured products such as cigars, cigarettes, and smok- 

 ing and chewing tobacco. The grub burrows through the commodity, 

 leaving behind it a fine powder of excrement. Cigars and cigarettes 

 are thus rendered unfit for use, and infested smoking and chewing 

 tobaccos are generally objectionable to the consumer. The greatest 

 losses from this insect, however, occur in unmanufactured tobacco. 

 Injury to flue-cured cigarette tobacco is shown in figure 4. 



Although tobacco is undoubtedly the most important single food 

 of the cigarette beetle in the United States, the insect also commonly 

 infests cottonseed meal, chili powder, curry powder, ginger, dry yeast, 

 and cayenne pepper. In addition the beetle has been reported "from 



