Tobacco Beatles can be a real pain in the "butt". No pun intended. If you're a serious cigar smoker tobacco beatles are a scary thing! These beatles are generally shipped and imported into the US in a dormant state in tobacco and cigars. When the temperature and humidity is right, these beatles can hatch and destroy cigars be eating the tobacco in search for water. In the following sections, we will teach you how to prevent the beatles and then what to do in case you're infected. Though the cigar beatles can be bothersome, it's nothing to worry about if you keep your cigars in proper temperature and humidity.

Prevent tobacco beatles in your cigars by keeping your humidor in good shape. The key is not to have too much humidity and keep the cigars at a relatively good temperature. If the temperature gets too high and the humidity is just right the beatles will hatch and you will have a major issue on your hands. The beatles can demolish a humidor full of cigars in a matter of weeks. Your humidity should be between 65/70 at all times and I would recommend using a digital humidity guage instead of the analog ones that generally come with the humidors produced today. A digital hygrometer will be much more reliable and will allow you to keep a close eye on your cigars. Also, don't let your cigars get too hot. If they get too hot they will encourage the eggs of the beatles to hatch. A great prevention tool is also humidity gel. If you do get beatles, they will instantly go for the moisture in the humidity gel and they typically drown. This is a great way to spot a problem before it gets worse. Check your gel every time you open your humidor to make sure no beatles have hatched and fallen in. If you spot tobacco beatles in your gel you'll know that you need to do some work to get rid of them ASAP!

Are you already infected by tobacco beatles? Believe me, most people have had this issue. There are a few things to do. First, fill your humidity gels and make sure they're ready to "trap" beatles that fall in. Separate ALL of the cigars from any other cigars in plastic or in other boxes. You don't want the infected cigars anywhere close to the other cigars because the Tobacco Beatle infection will spread. You can either throw away the cigars that have been eaten if the damage is bad enough or smoke them ASAP. You can also freeze all the cigars in the humidor that were possibly infected. This will kill the beatles that have hatched so far, but it will NOT kill the eggs that linger. You will have to be very careful not to allow the cigars to be in improper humidty and temperature in the future to prevent another hatching of Tobacco Beatles.