Got Bed Bugs? Bedbugger Forums » Reader questions (do not fit into other categories)
Bedbug Myths and Debunking
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IN HELLS Kitchen
newbite
Joined: Aug '09
Posts: 16
Posted 2 months ago
Mon Aug 31 2009 14:04:30
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Hi I thought it may help to start a thread that people could go to to start finding the truth about myths about bedbugs.
For example, I read that you shouldn't try and use regular or duct tape to try and trap BBs because they would stick too quickly and send out pheremones to keep other BBs to stay away. (I had duct tapes the legs on my bed to try and trap them) They said that the "Climb ups" were better, because it slowed them down, rather than stopping them immediately. Is that true? Can they really send out some sort of alarm pheremone to other BBs and does it happen if you try and use homemade methods of trapping?
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spideyjg
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Posted 2 months ago
Mon Aug 31 2009 14:21:43
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A Climb Up "traps them without spooking them. They just get confused that they can't find a way to the host but can still move. Stick them on tape they will feel attacked.
Bear in mind I'm no pro but that is just pure logic.
Jim
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spideyjg
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Posted 2 months ago
Mon Aug 31 2009 14:59:34
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Someone prove to me the "breakfast lunch and dinner pattern is caused by one bug. I don't think so.
All the people that feed them report a single stick. Theory is that BBs are colonial insects and it stands to reason let's say 10 bugs are in a colony under your mattress, all will sense you and head in your direction. All have the same sense and probably arrive close to the same location and all 10 feed.
Hence 10 close together bites and since they are small they don't climb much on you but may have to move over their buddy that got there ahead of them to find a spot.
Jim
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IN HELLS Kitchen
newbite
Joined: Aug '09
Posts: 16
Posted 2 months ago
Mon Aug 31 2009 15:43:09
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Another myth to debunk, prove, or discuss: Pets and Bedbugs
Do BBs really only bite humans and not dogs or cats? My dog is on frontline and doesn't seem to have any problems (of course he's covered in black hair!). But he sleeps in a crate close to our bed. Does he run the risk of being bitten too or not? As part of our saga, we'd been bitten for a bit, but then the bites stopped for several weeks. Could they have been biting the dog in the interim? I've been told that they don't like to go after animals if there's a human around, but when left with no other option, they'll choose the animals. Is this true?
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BugsInTO
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Posted 2 months ago
Mon Aug 31 2009 18:41:36
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Interesting discussion. I completely believed the "breakfast, lunch & dinner" bit pattern.
The pictures I have seen of people feeding their bedbug colonies didn't seem to replicate the natural conditions.
My husband and I both had bites in linear patterns, and in some cases, curved linear patterns. I still would find it more likely that this is the path of one bug. I find it less likely that a group of bugs all arrived together and lined themselves up and then did their biting.
The 3 bites (or 4, 5, etc.) shouldn't be a myth. It should be an observable, repeatable bug behaviour. So, if it is true that we have been accepting a theory, then here is yet another thing to be researched (but how?) I think it is good you are questioning it.
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spideyjg
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Posted 2 months ago
Tue Sep 1 2009 0:54:32
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BugsInTO - 6 hours ago »
I still would find it more likely that this is the path of one bug. I find it less likely that a group of bugs all arrived together and lined themselves up and then did their biting.
The 3 bites (or 4, 5, etc.) shouldn't be a myth. It should be an observable, repeatable bug behaviour. So, if it is true that we have been accepting a theory, then here is yet another thing to be researched (but how?) I think it is good you are questioning it.The fact bug bites often appear in a pattern is not in dispute. The question is, and what I have not seen confirmation of, whether it is the behaviour of individual or numbers of bugs.
From readings it seems the leading belief is that it is an individual bug behaviour yet EffeCi and David both say, in their observations feeding, the individual bugs bite once.
The only way to confirm one way or another is to observe feeding in the wild which violates several ethical issues with getting a person to get fed upon.
Jim
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parakeets
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Joined: Mar '07
Posts: 866
Posted 2 months ago
Tue Sep 1 2009 9:43:10
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Lots of good stuff here.
Yes, though they prefer humans, bedbugs can bite warm-blooded pets. My parakeets were bitten. Also, at a bedbug conference I once went to, presenters said they found a cat that was being bitten when its owner was away.
I've heard conflicting theories about how many bedbugs create "breakfast lunch and dinner" bites. One expert thought that several bedbugs fed in a line, maybe along an edge left by a sheet or clothing. I find the bites follow my veins.
As for Spidyjg's great comment "The only way to confirm one way or another is to observe feeding in the wild which violates several ethical issues with getting a person to get fed upon."--I have to say that in research programs in universities they have the bedbugs feed on graduate students!!! That made me laugh. Not quite "in the wild" but definitely "biting the hand that feeds them ...."
Myths I'd like to add:
1) Clutter causes bedbugs so people who don't have clutter and are excellent housekeepers won't get bedbugs. (Not true).
2) If you have anxiety about bedbugs that is causing you sleep problems and your doctor sends you for a sleep study you can tell the sleep study doctor (when you're asked what contributes to your anxiety) that bedbugs are affecting your sleep. Sadly, NOT true! When this happened to me, the sleep health center totally refused to let me undergo the lab study because I had bedbugs, even though I explained the careful precautions I would take. Shame on them, but be warned. Even medical doctors believe in bedbug myths--like the fact that they don't have to treat patients with bedbugs. -
buggyinsocal
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Posted 2 months ago
Tue Sep 1 2009 9:46:59
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The problem with the alarm chemical released with bugs when they are trapped is that it can cause the infestation to spread into more rooms, which is a bad thing.
I do want to be clear, however, that trapping a bug in tape in order to give proof to a PCO is a different kettle of fish than trying to build your own passive monitor. (I taped mine to a card, and put the card in a ziplock, and put that in the freezer because ew, ick, bug, but you get the idea. Incidentally, I wasn't trying to kill the bug with the freezer. I had a friend who's had to do a bug collection for a bio class at college, and I knew from watching her collect specimens that putting them in the freezer didn't kill them--just slowed them down, which seemed like a good plan to me.)
As for bed bugs feeding on pets, the evidence that we have is that bed bugs prefer to feed on human hosts. If human hosts are not available for feeding, bed bugs will feed from other mammals.
Think of it this way: if you're just normally hungry, you'll wait to eat the meal that you would prefer. If you're gone without food for days, you probably aren't esp. picky about what you eat.
As for the bites in a row pattern, keep in mind that when most colonies kept in captivity are fed, the bugs are not moving around as they would on their own. If you've seen video of them feeding, they're in a jar with a bite through top, and the jar is inverted over someone's skin. It's more like cows being steered (no pun intended) into feeding pens rather then free range.
And wow, I'm just replete with analogies this morning. Blame it on the early hour, lack of breakfast, and insane work load as the term starts.
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DeathToAllBBs
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Joined: Aug '09
Posts: 55
Posted 2 months ago
Tue Sep 1 2009 13:38:19
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IN HELLS Kitchen - 23 hours ago »
Hi I thought it may help to start a thread that people could go to to start finding the truth about myths about bedbugs.
For example, I read that you shouldn't try and use regular or duct tape to try and trap BBs because they would stick too quickly and send out pheremones to keep other BBs to stay away. (I had duct tapes the legs on my bed to try and trap them) They said that the "Climb ups" were better, because it slowed them down, rather than stopping them immediately. Is that true? Can they really send out some sort of alarm pheremone to other BBs and does it happen if you try and use homemade methods of trapping?They can and do send out alarm and fear pheromones. In fact, here is a link to how scientists are using those pheromones against them! It looks VERY promising.
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spideyjg
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Joined: Jul '08
Posts: 1,405
Posted 2 months ago
Tue Sep 1 2009 15:01:43
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buggyinsocal - 5 hours ago »
As for the bites in a row pattern, keep in mind that when most colonies kept in captivity are fed, the bugs are not moving around as they would on their own. If you've seen video of them feeding, they're in a jar with a bite through top, and the jar is inverted over someone's skin. .
Very true buggy but both David and EffeCi reported that single bite in a "free range" feeding outside of the jar and I have seen vids of unhindered bugs doing a single stick feeding.
My internal mad scientist would like to set up infrared and night vision cameras on a sleeping person and capture "wild feeding " footage to analyze. The thought of watching that gives me the willies though.
Again no doubt clusters are typical of BB bites but what does it take, if anything, for a bug to stop and restick?
Jim
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buggyinsocal
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Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 1,130
Posted 2 months ago
Tue Sep 1 2009 16:53:44
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Jim,
I should so know better to post during the first week of school. I am lucky to be able to form a sentence with more than my own name during that time period when I'm not in a classroom. It's like all my energy gets channeled into those hours when I'm in front of students.
Reading my post now, I think it sounds like I'm disagreeing with you. I'm not, or at least, I didn't mean to.
I didn't have the classic breakfast lunch and dinner pattern that people report, even though I had bed bugs. I do think that people are guessing that if a bug gets interrupted by the host's movement during feeding that it might not go far to reattach itself to finish feeding, and that that might cause the bites in a row pattern--at least some of the time.
But I don't think I've ever heard people say that that's what always causes the pattern. After all, even those of us who toss and turn a lot when we sleep don't always have that pattern.
But I've always assumed (maybe because I didn't have that pattern) that it could also just be coincidence. I guess what I was trying to say is that I was surprised to hear that people thought that that was always the case. If it were, wouldn't the jostling around of bugs in the jar when being fed that ?
buggy
(who hopes this makes slightly more sense) -
Some months ago my daughter decided to try a BB bite to see her skin reaction. I put a single BB on her leg and it bit her three times in a row. It was the first time I saw the "breakfast-lunch-dinner" pattern.
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spideyjg
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Posts: 1,405
Posted 2 months ago
Wed Sep 2 2009 8:42:57
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EffeCi - 7 hours ago »
Some months ago my daughter decided to try a BB bite to see her skin reaction. I put a single BB on her leg and it bit her three times in a row. It was the first time I saw the "breakfast-lunch-dinner" pattern.And that is out of how many "free range "feedings EffeCi? If I recall, you mainly do free range feedings right?
Jim
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