The Life Cycle of Bed Bugs

The Full Life Cycle of the Bed Bugs in Your Home

When you’re dealing with an infestation of bed bugs in your home, it can be unpleasant to even think about them. It’s bad enough that they’re in your bedding, clothes and furniture in the first place that you may prefer not to know all the details about the life cycle of the bed bugs.

However, as professional bed bug treatment experts, the team at Bed Bug Heaters knows that if you want to defeat pests, you need to understand pests, and that includes the basic biology of bed bugs. In fact, this is how things like thermal pest control equipment were invented in the first place. If you feel like learning a little more about your enemy, then read on to learn the life cycle of bed bugs.

Bed Bug Eggs
Once bed bugs have arrived in your home, they’ll settle into softer areas like upholstery, furniture, cushions, blankets and mattresses. There, they’ll begin their cycle of feeding off anyone nearby and then breeding. Bed bug eggs are laid throughout these areas and can be difficult to spot due to their size.

Because of this, they tend to go unnoticed, which means they hatch and begin the next round. Bed bug eggs are tiny, about the size of the head of a pin, and pearl-white in color. After five days, the egg develops a distinctive dark spot on it before proceeding to hatch.

Nymph Stages
Nymphs are the younger bugs. These are especially difficult to spot when compared to their elders, as they tend to be smaller and translucent. They are almost impossible to see on fabric or any light-colored surfaces. Being hard to see makes it much easier for them to feed, grow and, yes, continue to reproduce.

Male and Female Adult Bed Bugs
An adult bed bug is much bigger, although still hard to see if you’re not looking carefully. About the size of a single apple seed, adults have a brown oval-shaped body. If they’ve recently fed, then they take on a more swollen shape, with a reddish-brown color. Increasing the gross-out factor, adults also produce a distinctive, musty-sweet smell.

Bed Bug Lifespan
A bed bug will go through five stages of development before becoming a full-sized adult. At each stage, they will shed their skin, leaving a tiny husk behind, until they become adults. They tend to live for about ten months, which is significantly longer than many other bugs, and they can also survive for weeks without feeding. Being this hardy can make them especially difficult to treat.

Rid Your Home of Bed Bugs Today
Whether you find all this fascinating or just deeply unpleasant, if you have bed bugs, then you need to get the problem taken care of. Bed bugs can cause serious problems if an infestation is left untreated, and Bed Bug Heaters can help. We offer professional thermal pest control equipment that you can rent to use yourself or have our team use for you. For fast, effective and safe pest control services, talk to Bed Bug Heaters today.