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Blood meals
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Triomphatrice des punaises
newbite
Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 20
Posted 3 months ago
Sun Jul 19 2009 20:19:09
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I have read that if a person gets bit the infestation prob. has grown greater than a mild infestation, because the bb could be a pregnant female with the concommitant progression that will ensue.
Do males have blood meals? Nymphs of both genders - do they have blood meals? I ask b/c I have a little theory that the bite of a pregnant female might be larger than other types. I know that research shows that nymphs and full-grown adult bites do not differ, but I have had some very inflamed bites and some not so inflamed.
Is it possible that if a bb can feed sufficiently on a single bite it will be larger than one that been disturbed and must multiply bite?
Also, I would think a solution to the problem would be to make human blood somehow harmful/unpalatable to the bb. Say, for example, a high concentration of some vitamin or other substance. Has there been any research on that?
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Triomphatrice des punaises
newbite
Joined: Jun '09
Posts: 20
Posted 3 months ago
Sun Jul 19 2009 20:20:11
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Sorry, that should be . .. "if a person is bitten" . . ..
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cantstandbedbugs
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Joined: May '09
Posts: 80
Posted 3 months ago
Sun Jul 19 2009 21:03:45
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Hi Triomphatrise des punaises,
Nymph need a blood meal to morph to the next phase so I'm pretty sure the males and female nymph alike do have blood meals. Otherwise they would stay babies forever. It would be great if there was some supplement we could take that would make human blood taste bad to them or even kill them. As for some of the bites being inflame while others aren't I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the size of the bb, I'm no expert. But as for my own personal experience depending on where they bite me I react total different. If I get bit on my arms I get a horrible itchy, inflamed, burning rash that spreads a few inches in every which direction, it goes away then comes back full force. I mean so itchy that I scratch my skin off and bleed without even realizing it. If I get bit on my legs, abdomen they look similar to mosquito bites but they itch more intensely then go away faster then my arms.
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buggyinsocal
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Joined: Jun '08
Posts: 1,160
Posted 3 months ago
Sun Jul 19 2009 22:47:57
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My understanding, as a layperson, is this.
If you have nymphs, and they don't get access to a blood meal, they can't grow into the next stage.
If you only had nymphs in your home and you could prevent them from feeding on any mammal at any time, you might kill them off before they could reproduced.
(the problems with this as a reliable control method ought to be obvious. First, they're so stealthy that you can't ever be 100% sure until you've had months with no signs that there isn't a rogue inseminated female somewhere. Secondly, nymphs at the later stages can live pretty darned long, so trying to keep any pets or humans from being fed on in that time frame? Kind of impossible.)
I *have* heard PCOs say that if you've only got nymphs and no adults, it's probably easier to get rid of an infestation because you might be able to kill that generation off before they reach maturity to reproduce, which would give you a much bigger multi-generation problem overall--esp. since the eggs are very small and can be glued in hard to reach places. The eggs are also the hardest stage to kill in some ways, since many contact pesticides and other contact killer substances will kill all stages of life, but only one chemical pesticide, high heat, or Vikane will reliably kill most(in the case of the pesticide) or all(Thermal or Vikane) eggs.
Both genders of bed bugs take blood meals. This is one of the aspects of bed bug behavior and physiology that make them so hard to eliminate with chemical pesticides. Unlike roaches that groom themselves (and ingest any chemical pesticides they've walked through while they do so) or ants that can be baited, bed bugs only feed on the blood of mammals. (The suggestion is that they prefer humans, but will take cat or dog or other blood if humans aren't available.)
As for the bites of adults vs. nymphs . . .[look, a rogue ellipsis] the best science I've heard is that there is no conclusive difference in size of bite reactions between nymph and adult bed bug bites. The evidence to which I refer is video of a person going for a bite reaction test in which the researcher allows a nymph and an adult to feed on the arm of the person. The video shows the skin response to both bites, and they're about the same.
From a logical standpoint, the intuition is a good one: smaller nymph=less whatever they inject that causes a response. To be fair, I'm also not sure we've heard the last word on this one. But of the science I've seen, the best and most reliable stuff suggests to me that nymph bites and adult bites are pretty much the same size.
Hope that helps.
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