Comments on: Good news: bed bug aggregate pheromones

By: nobugsonme

nobugsonme — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:42:09 +0000

Groundhog Sean says 6-12 more months of pheromone research would be optimistic.
Don’t hold your breath!

By: nobugsonme

nobugsonme — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 01:52:39 +0000

Lisa,
There are some inaccuracies in what you state above: bed bugs do go through six life stages, but they never have more or fewer than six legs. In other words, they are always in the “six-legged stage.”
Bird mites have eight legs.
The smallest bed bug is 1mm (1/32 inch) so I do not think you would have to magnify a bed bug 400x to see it. Adult bed bugs are 1/6 inch or 6 mm long. Bird mites (which are an entirely different species of animal) are smaller.
In any case, I am very glad you got your diagnosis and that you are getting treatment.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:13:08 +0000

I caught two bed bugs, after being treated for Scabies and then being told I had Delusions Of Parasites (all by my Dermatologist. My family doctor didn’t know what I had. I was open to the possibility of Delusions Of Parasites, however, I was getting new bites and my 11 year old Maltese was suffering from bites. We both would get itchy in the car, too.
I turned on my laptop at midnight and let it get good and hot. I turned it off and put it in a white plastic trash bag and put it under my covers and I turned off the lights and waited in the next room. At 1 a.m. I went in to my bedroom wearing two pair of reading glasses and flipped on the overhead light fixture that had three new very bright bulbs and on the wall two feet about the head of my bed and two inches above the vent that is 3 feet up from the floor was a bed bug! They are super fast crawlers, so I slipped it off the wall into a plastic bag. The bed bug crawled to the corner of the bag and started to try to burrow out. I put the whole bag in a white porcelain bowl and got a glass test tube and caught the bugger. Then he played dead for 3 days. I put the test tube on my photocopier and secured the tube and took a copy every 5 minutes. Out came his legs and he was crawling all over the test tube.
I showed my doctor the test tube and he thought it was just a small piece of matter, not a bug, until I showed him the photocopies magnified 400x. He was blown away. Truly blown away. He called in his staff he stared at the tube and started shouting, “It’s alive! Oh my God! Come look at this!” He called in his staff of three and showed them all.
I called the County Health Inspector and the Orkin Man. They both suspect Bed Bugs and Bird Mites. We have nests all over the apartment building and up until last month, the trees were touching the apartment building. The trees were covered with webs, bugs and birds. County Health took samples and my Bed Bug for testing. The bug was in the six legged stage. Bed Bugs go through six life cycles and leave black bits in your bed and rust color streak marks on the sheets. If you park your car under a tree, the bird mites can get inside the door cracks and sunroof. They can enter your home through the roof, windows, etc.

By: nobugsonme

nobugsonme — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:12:40 +0000

Bill, it’s a lot easier to kill roaches than bed bugs. All you have to do is leave some food out laced with boric acid, or go really high-tech with a tube of roach gel.

Bed bugs, we know, are much trickier. Since all they want is your approx. 98F, carbon-dioxide emitting body, it is harder to nab them.

Bed bug aggregate pheromones are what bed bugs use to tell each other, “Hey guys! Party over here!” so that they gather. Simulating that is no easy matter.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:08:53 +0000

Well, if they can make a trap that catches roaches, why not one that catches bed bugs?

Bill

By: nobugsonme

nobugsonme — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:22:01 +0000

Yes, MrBill. When they are available, they will be a fine thing. Even if imperfect, a huge help. From what I understand, you will still be preferable to the trap. But many people lack evidence, and some do not even appear to react to bites, and so catching bed bugs provides needed information.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:06:01 +0000

It looks to me like that as long as one of these traps will attract bed bugs to it moreso than to me, it will be effective in monitoring them, if not eliminating them .

Mr Bill

By: Bed Bugs in NYC schools: DOE spokeswoman Marjorie Feinberg needs better bed bug information | bedbugger

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 03:05:52 +0000

[...] have some idea what we’re expecting teachers to do here. All I can say is bring on those bed bug pheromone traps, before the whole city is infested, and doesn’t even know [...]

By: nobugsonme

nobugsonme — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:39:34 +0000

Hi Hymenoptera, The 2-3 month estimate came from someone claiming to be on the team making the product. But we should definitely not hold our breath. For the reasons you say, we don’t even know how well it will work. Methinks bed bugs will be fooling us for a bit longer.

By: hymenoptera

hymenoptera — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:36:11 +0000

While this does sound like good news I wouldn’t put that 2-3 month
down on the calendear yet. It’s not just a matter of identifying the
pheromone but synthesizing it and that putting it on a re designed
trap to address some bed bug specific behavior. Radius will also be a
factor since it is a aggregate pheromone and not a sex pheomone.
That traumatic insemination takes all the attraction out of it.