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"You can't let up for one moment with this beetle," warns Benjamin Menendez, chief blender and director of Caribbean and Central American operations for Tabacalera Cigars International, makers of Vega Fina, Quintero and Saint Luis Rey cigars. "If you do, Lasioderma will get your tobacco."

Menendez, whose family founded Montecristo and also owned H. Upmann before the Cuban revolution, has cigar roots going back three generations. He regards the beetle with respect, and as a worthy adversary. From his early days as a child in his family's factory, Menendez remembers the first thing he was taught about keeping beetles away from cigars.

"The factory must be clean," says Menendez. "Not just clean, but spotless. You can't even have scraps of tobacco left in the corner. Or dust." Other manufacturers agree.

"All warehouses and factories must be as clean as possible," says George Gershel, senior vice president of tobacco for Consolidated Cigar. "That's the first and most important order of business with beetles. After cleanliness, we use serious traps, and fumigate at different stages."

Traps allow the manufacturer not only to kill bugs, but also to assess if a beetle problem is present and to estimate the number of beetle eggs that might have been laid. Menendez reports that for every beetle he finds in a trap, he figures that there are 100 eggs somewhere in his factory. Checking beetle traps has become a part of his daily routine. Consolidated also checks traps in its warehouses and factories at least once a day, Gershel says.

According to Alain Van Ryckeghem, technical director of Insects Limited, an insect control company, beetle traps can be placed on the floor or hung above it. The traps are set with a man-made chemical designed to duplicate the natural pheromone that attracts beetles to one another. The traps are also filled with an adhesive, so once the bugs are lured, they can be ensnared by the sticky surface.

"The trapping mechanism and lure work together," explains Van Ryckeghem. "You can catch a lot of insects with a trap, but you can't control the eggs already laid or the larvae feeding within the food source. Fumigants or freezing are most effective for that."

In a cigar warehouse or factory, fumigants intended to destroy pests are applied after the tobacco is aged and, often, just before the cigars are shipped. The most popular fumigant used in the cigar industry is Phostoxin, a chemical made of aluminum phosphide. When sprayed into a sealed and air-tight room, Phostoxin leaves no residue and kills beetles in all stages of life. On average, Phostoxin takes effect and evaporates within 72 hours of spraying. It leaves no harmful toxins or residue and has no effect on the taste of the tobacco or the health of the smoker.

Menendez traps and fumigates, but still relies heavily on freezing. "Chemicals get banned for all kinds of reasons," says Menendez. "Freezing is still the best because it's the most natural way to treat a cigar. People think freezing affects the taste, but look at what it does to meat or food. It preserves the flavor."

Van Ryckeghem also counts freezing as an effective way to kill beetles, but he stresses that each case is different. As a consultant called in to rid storage facilities from pests and insects, Van Ryckeghem inspects the infested environment and then interviews workers before he weighs the most effective solutions. "You have to look at the type of insect first," he says. "With tobacco beetles, often traps and fumigants and freezing are all necessary to best control the environment, whether it's infested or not."

"I've seen beetles make a bale of tobacco into a pile of dust and powder," notes Consolidated's Gershel. "You need to keep a close eye, you can't ever get careless, and you have to make sure the same goes for your supplier."

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