Spread Of Pest Threatens Coffee Crops By Jill Kuramoto KITV 4 News October 25, 2010 KONA, Hawaii -- The state is preparing to move ahead with a quarantine as an "emergency administrative rule" to keep the tiny coffee berry borer from spreading to other islands. The coffee berry borer is a tiny beetle, smaller than the size of a sesame seed. It gets its name by how it bores into the coffee bean to lay its eggs. The coffee berry borer beetle lays its eggs in the coffee "cherry" that contains the bean. The larvae feed on the coffee bean and reduce the bean's size and quality, agriculture officials said. State agriculture officials have found 21 areas in South Kona that have been infested by the bug and deemed a quarantine is necessary to keep it from spreading. The quarantine would require green, non-roasted coffee beans to be treated with heat or insecticide before they're shipped off the island. A meeting held last week on the issue on the ...