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Pest Management Priducts Division of CSPA
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Bed bugs have three life stages; egg, nymph and adult.
Eggs
The egg is 1/32 inch (1 mm) long. The female bed bug lays eggs in cracks in furniture, folders of mattresses or on other rough surfaces. She uses an adhesive cement to secure the eggs to the substrate. The eggs hatch within 7-10 days in favorable conditions.
Nymphs
When the egg hatches, a tiny nymph emerges; it resembles a miniature version of the adult. Bed bugs only feed upon blood. The newly emerged nymph must crawl away from its birth place and find a host to feed. If it survives, the nymph will molt five times into successively larger nymphal stages until it become an adult. The nymph (or adult) finds a host by random wandering until it comes within range. Body heat, carbon dioxide and natural scents given off by the host, are used by the bed bug to locate a host.
Adult
The adult bed bug is about 1/2 to 7/8 inches (13-23mm) long and distinctly flattened. As with the unfed nymphs, the adults are pale brown. All bed bugs turn bright red after feeding and their abdomens expand and elongate greatly. As bed bugs digest their blood meals over the ensuing days, their abdomens subside and their pale brown color returns. Female bed bug eggs can lay 1-5 tiny white eggs per day. Over her life time she may lay 200-500 eggs. The time required from egg hatch to adult is typically 4-5 weeks. Bed bugs spend most of their lives in motionless hiding. They prefer to squeeze into such hidden places as cracks in furniture, box springs, mattresses, behind pictures, in screw holes, behind the head boards of beds and beneath carpets. Once they have fed, bed bugs can go without another meal for many weeks or even months. This tendency to hide and their ability to survive for so long without feeding, make control difficult.
Once the nymph finds a host, usually a sleeping person, it unfolds its proboscis and pushes it into the skin until it reaches a capillary. It then begins to pump blood into its gut. Feeding takes about 3 minutes.