What is a bed bug?

The bed bug

The common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) is a blood-feeding, itchy, and generally irritating parasite of its human hosts. Its proliferation is considered a public health problem. However, unlike most parasites that cause hygiene issues, bed bugs are not known to transmit or spread disease, but they can cause other skin problems. It is therefore important to pay particular attention to the prevention and control of bed bugs. Scientists believe that the recent increase in the number of these pests may be due to lack of knowledge about preventing infestations combined with bed bugs' increased resistance to pesticides and ineffective pest control practices.

Fortunately, there are ways to control bed bugs. The first stage of prevention lies in the wide dissemination of quality information to individuals. Although there is no quick fix, some strategies (whether chemical or non-chemical) are effective in controlling bed bugs. They can be difficult to find and identify, given their small size and habit of staying hidden. It is therefore useful to know what they look like because they have different shapes at each stage of their life.

Appearance and life cycle of bed bugs

To identify bed bugs effectively, you need to have a precise idea of ​​what you are looking for: many insects look like them and precise identification can avoid costly and ineffective treatment later. The types of bugs that look like bed bugs vary by region, but researchers have compiled photos and descriptions of common species.

The size of the adult bed bug is usually close to that of a long, brown apple kernel. It has a flat, egg-shaped body (if the flea has not eaten recently) and a reddish-brown color. The body will be more elongated if it has eaten recently. Finally, the bed bug is one of the smelly insects giving off a musty and sugary smell produced by the glands located on the lower part of the body.

Bed bug larvae (also called nymphs) are usually lighter in color, translucent or whitish-yellow and, if not recently fed, almost invisible to the naked eye due to their lack of color and of its size.

Bed bug eggs are about the size of a pinhead. They are pearl white in color and marked with a spot if they are more than five days old.

The bed bug has a lifespan ranging from 6 months to 2 years on average. Adult females lay an average of 300 eggs in their lifetime. The eggs hatch, then the larvae undergo development in 5 stages. At the end of the 5 stages, the bed bug has reached its adult size. It is the blood collected in the bites that allows the nymphs to pass from one stage to another.

How to find bed bugs

If you have a bedbug infestation, it's best to catch it early, before the outbreak takes hold or spreads: treating a minor infestation is much cheaper and easier than treating the same infestation once. times it is more prevalent.

However, small colonies are also much more difficult to identify correctly. Other insects, such as carpet beetles, can easily be confused with bed bugs. If a colony has been misidentified, this gives bedbugs more time to spread to other areas of the home, or even proliferate outside of the original dwelling.

Recognizing a bed bug bite is not so easy. The traces left on the epidermis can resemble mosquito bites or rashes (such as eczema or fungal infections) or even hives. The time it takes for a bed bug bite to appear also varies from person to person. Reactions vary from sustained discomfort (hives) to no reaction at all.

A more accurate way to identify a possible outbreak is to look for physical signs of their presence on your belongings: when cleaning, changing bedding or storing laundry, here are the signs to look out for:

– Reddish stains on bed sheets or mattresses caused by crushing bed bugs.

– Dark stains (about this size :-), which are bed bug droppings and can leave a mark on the fabric like a felt pen.

– Eggs and eggshells, which are tiny (about 1 mm) and the pale yellow skins that bed bug larvae shed as they grow.

– Live bed bugs

When not feeding, bedbugs hide in various places. Around the bed, they can be found near the piping, seams and tags of the mattress and box spring, as well as in the crevices of the bed frame and headboard. Read more about bed bugs on this page

If the room is very overgrown, you may find insects in less usual places like the seams of chairs or sofas, in the folds of curtains, drawer joints, electrical outlets, under wallpaper, in the junction point between the wall and the ceiling, or even in the head of a screw.

Because bed bugs are about the width of a credit card, they can squeeze into very small hiding places. If a slot can hold a credit card, it can hide a bed bug.

Behavior and habits of bed bugs

Understanding bed bug behavior (how they feed, live and reproduce) will help you find a colony before it takes hold or ensure that it does not move back in after housing disinsection.

The flea seems to prefer to feed on human blood, but it can also consume that of other mammals or birds. It moves easily and relatively far from its established hiding place (called safe havens) to feed on a host. Even bedbugs are mostly active at night, they can also look for hosts in broad daylight. Feeding can take 3-12 minutes. For 20% of feeding time, adults and large nymphs eliminate the remains of previous meals, resulting in the presence of tar-colored stains found on bed sheets or in hiding places.

Bed bugs need at least one blood meal in order to grow and reach the next of six life stages. They may feed more than once between each instar. Each stage also requires shedding of the skin. To continue to mate and produce bed bug eggs, both males and females need to feed at least once every 14 days. Each female can lay 1-3 eggs per day and 200-500 eggs per lifetime (about one year). The life cycle from egg to egg can take four to five weeks depending on development conditions.

Bed bugs can survive and remain active at temperatures as low as 7°C. However, they die when their body temperature reaches 45°C. Thus, to kill the bed bug by heat, the room must be even warmer to ensure that 45°C is reached in every corner, wherever they hide. Common bed bugs are found almost wherever their host may live. The tropical bed bug (Cimex hemipterus) needs a higher average temperature than the common bed bug and is found as its name suggests in tropical and subtropical regions.

Guillaume A, site manager, decoration enthusiast and occasional handyman, I do most of my work at home. I trained myself in DIY using various web series, which allows me today to give you my humble advice. You can contact me on Twitter, but prefer the site form.