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There is a bag of sugar that is full of dead weevils. These tiny insects are just the same size as sugar particles. If they were alive, I could expose them to the sun and they would fly away. If their size were different than the sugar particles size, I could filter them through a mesh. Any practical suggestions to get rid of these dead insects and save the sugar?

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You can dissolve the sugar in water and filter it, then evaporate the water.

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  • That occurred to me actually, but would not the sugar burn when I evaporate the water? Can you explain a little bit please how I can evaporate the water and save the sugar?
    – User
    Nov 21, 2018 at 17:37
  • You desolve whole suger in water. And after desolving the suger you filter it. The dead weevils are filter from suger. And the water with suger can use latter. Nov 21, 2018 at 17:43
  • Thank you. This way I will lose the sugar crystals only but I still keep the sugary water for other uses.
    – User
    Nov 21, 2018 at 17:50
  • @User if done right, you will simply evaporate (most) of the water. Use a thermometer, while water is present, the sugar solution continues to boil at 100C. Stop when the temperature starts to rise or you end up with a batch of caramel.
    – Stephie
    Nov 26, 2018 at 19:57
  • @Stephie Thank you. You are right. This is a useful comment :)
    – User
    Nov 27, 2018 at 6:54
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You might be able to get rid of the weevils, but what about any waste they've excreted? They've been living, breeding, eating, defecating, and dying inside that bag of sugar. I'm not sure if it's wise to use that sugar, even if you could remove the weevil bodies. You've probably got some unwanted bacteria in there that will taint whatever product you want to use the sugar in. For example, if you use it to sweeten some home made cider, you'll probably end up with cider vinegar after a few weeks.

Sugar is cheap, and easy to replace. Unless you're talking about a very large quantity (on an industrial scale), it's probably wiser to write it off.

How about using preventative measures, to stop this from happening again?

A few years ago, I had a problem with weevil infections in my bakery cupboard. They would get into my flour, sugar and cornflour. I would then throw out my supplies, clean my cupboard, and buy new supplies. A few months later, I would find that my new supplies were also infected! It was becoming an expensive problem.

I decided to wrap all of my baking supply bags in plastic bags. The idea was to isolate any infected bags, and stop it from spreading to any other bags. I've never had any problems since.

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  • Thank you :) 1. This actually does not provide an answer to my question. This answers another question I did not ask is it safe to eat sugar infested with weevils and economically profitable to get rid of them? 2. Please be aware that I might have other reasons to ask such a question (and here is not the right place to discuss them)? It is not always about the money.
    – User
    Nov 26, 2018 at 12:59
  • 3. Here are 3 links among many others saying eating weevils themselves does not damage or cause harm to the body and does not transmit diseases: Are weevils dangerous?, I ate weevils- will I be okay?, Granary weevil
    – User
    Nov 26, 2018 at 13:02
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    @User, but it does answer your question, by questioning the premise of the question. It's perfectly valid to answer a question of "how do I do x", with "don't do that, because of these reasons". I even gave you an alternative, to prevent it from happening again in future. Nov 26, 2018 at 13:50
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If the dead weevils are a different weight than the sugar crystals, you can use moving air to separate the sugar from the weevils.

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  • Interesting. I am not sure if this is a practical method. I am afraid if I try to do that, the sugar would fly away.
    – User
    Nov 21, 2018 at 17:40
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how much money are you talking about? Dead Weevils (yuk!) I'd toss the whole bag and buy another rather than swallowing dead weevils. Not my kind of protein.

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    This does not provide an answer to my question. I do not know how you came to this weird conclusion! The point of my question is to get rid of weevils in order not to swallow them 😊 If I can not rid of them, I will throw certainly the whole bag as you said. Besides, it is never about money. If your car has a problem and you can fix it, why throw it away?!
    – User
    Nov 23, 2018 at 3:26
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    Sorry about that --- I guess with edibles, I wouldn't go thru the trouble of cleaning it up unless it was a large and valuable bag. I do know some folks radiate food to neutralize potentially harmful organic matter. A drug company I used to work for routinely radiated a unique tropical bark to neutralize a parasite and fda approved the process. May look into that if you are talking about a valuable 100+ lb bag.
    – Alan
    Nov 25, 2018 at 3:58
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    @User, this in fact does provide an answer to the question. Sugar is cheap. Challenging the premise of the question is allowed. It's probably not worth the effort to attempt to salvage the sugar unless we are talking about a vast quantity. Nov 26, 2018 at 10:25

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