Category Archives: Canada Bed Bugs

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Feeding habits

Bedbugs are obligatory hematophagous (bloodsucking) insects. Most species only feed on humans when other prey are unavailable. They are normally out at night just before dawn, with a peak feeding period of about an hour before sunrise, but have been observed feeding during the day. Bedbugs are attracted to their hosts primarily by carbon dioxide, secondarily by warmth, and also by certain chemicals. They reach a detected host by crawling, or sometimes dropping from a height.

A bedbug pierces the skin of its host with two hollow feeding tubes. With one tube it injects its saliva, which contains anticoagulants and anesthetics, while with the other it withdraws the blood of its host. After feeding for about five minutes, the bug returns to its hiding place.

Although bedbugs can live for a year without feeding, they normally try to feed every five to ten days. When it's cold, bedbugs can live for about a year; at temperatures more conducive to activity and feeding, about 5 months.

At the 57th Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America in 2009, it was reported that newer generations of pesticide-resistant bedbugs in Virginia could survive only two months without feeding.

Predators

Natural enemies of bedbugs include the masked hunter (AKA "masked bedbug hunter"), cockroaches, ants, spiders, mites, and centipedes. The Pharaoh ant's (Monomorium pharaonis) venom is lethal to bedbugs. Rodents eat bedbugs, but bats do not, due to their distaste for the bedbug alarm pheromone, which is released when they are attacked. Biological control is not very practical for eliminating bedbugs from human dwellings.

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Welcome to Bed Bug Registry Database :: US and Canada Bed ...

What are bedbugs? Bedbugs are small, elusive insects that belong to the insect family Cimicidae. They feed on the blood of warm blooded animals including humans. Cimex lectularius are commonly called Bedbugs because they are mainly active at night between 2am and 5am.

Bedbugs are a growing source of aggravation, particularly in the developed Western world, because bedbugs were by and large wiped out in the late 1950s with the widespread use of DDT. Prior to 1995, most people under 50 years of age had never seen a bedbug. Bedbugs have since begun making a major comeback worldwide.

What Do Bedbugs Look Like? Adult bed bugs reach 5-8mm in length, while nymphs are as small as 1.5mm. Bedbugs have flat bodies, are wingless, and are sometimes mistaken for ticks or small cockroaches. Bedbugs feed by sucking blood from humans or animals. Adult bedbugs are reddish brown in color while nymphs are clear in color but appear bright red after feeding. Newly hatched nymphs are translucent, and as the bedbugs grow moult, they become a deeper brown.

Symptoms of Bedbug Bites: Bedbugs bite and suck blood from humans. Bedbugs are most active at night and bite any exposed areas of skin while an individual is sleeping. The face, neck, hands, and arms are common sites for bed bug bites. The bite itself is painless and is not noticed. Small, flat, or raised bumps on the skin are the most common sign; redness, swelling, and itching commonly occur. If scratched, the bite areas can become infected. A peculiarity of bedbug bites is the tendency to find several bites lined up in a row. Infectious disease specialists refer to this as the breakfast, lunch, and dinner sign signifying the sequential feeding that occurs from site to site.

History of Bedbugs: Bedbugs were common in the U.S. before World War II and became rare after widespread use of the pesticide DDT began in the 1940s and 1950s. They remained prevalent in other areas of the world and, in recent years, have been increasingly observed again in the U.S. Increases in immigration and travel from the developing world as well as restrictions on the use of stronger pesticides may be factors that have led to the relatively recent increase in bed bug infestations. Bedbugs have been resurgent in the past decade and are nearing epidemic proportions.

Where are bedbugs found? While bed bugs are often reported to be found when sanitation conditions are poor or when birds or mammals (particularly bats) are nesting on or near a home, bed bugs can also live and thrive in clean environments. Crowded living quarters also facilitate the spread of bed bugs.

Bed bugs can live in any area of the home and can reside in tiny cracks in furniture as well as on textiles and upholstered furniture. They tend to be most common in areas where people sleep and generally concentrate in beds, including mattresses, box springs, and bed frames. Other sites where bed bugs often reside include curtains, the corners inside dressers and other furniture, cracks in wallpaper (particularly near the bed), and inside the spaces of wicker furniture. As bedbugs can live for months without feeding, they can also be found in vacant homes.

Methods for Killing Bedbugs:

Bedbugs are very difficult to kill because of two main factors: (1) their natural resilience and (2) their resistance to contemporary domestic chemical pesticides.

Their resilience is largely due to a waxy coating on their bodies which protects them from surface pesticides and the chemical tolerance bedbugs developed during the 1940s and 1950s to chemical pesticides during the widespread spraying of DDT.

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About Bedbugs | Canada Bedbugs

According to University Herald, a new study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology found that bed bugs can survive temperatures as low as 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 degrees Celsius) for up to three days time.

For the study, researchers recorded what temperatures led to 100 percent mortality of all life stages of bed bugs. They discovered that it would take 80 hours to kill all bed bugs at 3 degrees Fahrenheit and 48 hours to destroy them at -4 degrees Fahrenheit. In other words, sticking your infected sheets and clothes in the freezer wont really work, at least in the long term, unless you can replicate these conditions.

According to the study, the bugs high cold tolerance is attributed to its use of a freeze-intolerant strategy, meaning the parasitic pest can actually lower the freezing point of its bodily fluids when faced with harsh conditions.

The news comes at a time when major cities around the globe have seen a resurgence in bed bug infestations. Although the presence of bed bugs has traditionally been seen as a problem in developing countries, it has recently been spreading rapidly in parts of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other parts of Europe, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, noted.

According to NBC News, bed bugs have infiltrate hotels, homes, schools and even offices. They can live in the crevices of sheets, clothing, wallpaper, headboards, mattresses and dresser tables.

Fortunately, the bugs are not known to carry diseases, but they do leave an irritating and itchy rash on their victims. Theyre also incredibly hard to eradicate.

To treat bedbugs, the CDC recommends hiring a professional exterminator who will probably use an insecticide spray to kill the bugs in your home or apartment. The best way to treat bed bugs is to catch them early. Look for signs of bed bugs in your home. If you see dark spots on your sheets about the size of the period at the end of this sentence, that could be bed bug excrement. Also look for small blood stains on your sheets caused by crushed bed bugs.

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‘Freeze-Intolerant’ Bed Bugs Can Survive Subzero Temperatures For Days

British Columbia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [+]

British Columbia i/brt klmbi/, also commonly referred to by its initials BC or B.C., (French: Colombie-Britannique, C.-B.) is the westernmost province of Canada. In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada. British Columbia is also a component of the Pacific Northwest, along with the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington.[4][5] The province's name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858, reflecting its origins as the British remainder of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu ("Splendour without Diminishment").

The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for the Queen that created the Colony of British Columbia. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest. In 2012, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,622,573 (about two and a half million of whom were in Greater Vancouver).[6] The province is currently governed by the BC Liberal Party, led by Premier Christy Clark, who became leader as a result of the party election on February 26, 2011 and who led her party to an election victory on May 14, 2013.

British Columbia's economy is largely resource-based. It is the endpoint of transcontinental railways and the site of major Pacific ports, which enable international trade. Though less than five percent of its vast 944,735 km2 (364,764sqmi) land is arable, the province is agriculturally rich (particularly in the Fraser and Okanagan Valleys) because of its mild weather. Its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the province's largest city and metropolitan area, also serves as the headquarters of many of the Western-based natural resource companies. It also benefits from a strong housing market and a per-capita income well above the national average. While the coast of BC and certain valleys in the south-central part of the province have mild weather, the majority of BC's land mass experiences a cold winter temperate climate similar to the rest of Canada. The Northeast corner of BC has a Subarctic climate with very cold winters.

The province's name was chosen by Queen Victoria when the Colony of British Columbia, i.e. "the Mainland", became a British colony in 1858.[7] It refers to the Columbia District, the British name for the territory drained by the Columbia River, in southeastern British Columbia, which was the namesake of the pre-Oregon Treaty Columbia Department of the Hudson's Bay Company. Queen Victoria chose British Columbia to distinguish what was the British sector of the Columbia District from that of the United States ("American Columbia" or "Southern Columbia"), which became the Oregon Territory in 1848 as a result of the treaty.[citation needed]

British Columbia is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the west side, by the U.S. state of Alaska on the northwest as well as parts of the west, on the north by Yukon and the Northwest Territories, on the east by the province of Alberta, and on the south by the U.S. states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The current southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, although its history is tied with lands as far south as California. British Columbia's land area is 944,735 square kilometres (364,800sqmi). British Columbia's rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres (17,000mi), and includes deep, mountainous fjords and about six thousand islands, most of which are uninhabited.

British Columbia's capital is Victoria, located at the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island. The province's most populous city is Vancouver, which is not on Vancouver Island but rather is located in the southwest corner of the mainland (an area often called the Lower Mainland). By area, Abbotsford is the largest city. Vanderhoof is near the geographic centre of the province.[8]

The Coast Mountains and the Inside Passage's many inlets provide some of British Columbia's renowned and spectacular scenery, which forms the backdrop and context for a growing outdoor adventure and ecotourism industry. Seventy-five percent of the province is mountainous (more than 1,000 metres (3,300ft) above sea level); 60% is forested; and only about 5% is arable.

The Okanagan area is one of several wine-producing regions in Canada and also produces ciders; other wine regions in British Columbia include the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, and the Fraser Valley. The cities of Kamloops and Penticton, and rural towns of Oliver, and Osoyoos have some of the warmest and longest summer climates in Canada, although their temperature ranges are exceeded by the warmer Fraser Canyon towns of Lillooet and Lytton, where shade temperatures on summer afternoons often surpass 40 C (104F) but with very low humidity.

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British Columbia, Canada Bed Bug Registry Map – Bed Bug ...

Cedar, Cinnamon, Lemon Grass, Peppermint, and Clove Oil? Theres No Proof They Will Eradicate Bed Bugs, Agency Says

The Federal Trade Commission filed deceptive advertising charges against two marketers of remedies for bed bug infestations, who allegedly failed to back up overhyped claims that they could prevent and eliminate infestations using natural ingredients, such as cinnamon and cedar oil. One marketer also allegedly made misleading claims that its products were effective against head lice.

In one of the two cases, RMB Group, LLC and its principals have agreed to settle the charges relating to their Rest Easy bed bug products. In the case against Cedarcide

Industries, Inc. and others, challenging their marketing of Best Yet! bed bug and head lice treatments, the defendants have not settled, and the FTC is beginning litigation against them.

Bed bugs have been a growing public health pest in recent years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Consumers plagued with bed bugs experience considerable stress, discomfort, and expense in attempting to rid themselves of these pests, and many are unaware of the complex measures needed to prevent and control them, according to the EPA.

Consumers concerned about bed bugs also should see the FTC publication, Good Night, Sleep Tight, and Dont Let the Bed Bugs Bite . . . Your Wallet, which urges caution about advertisements that offer quick solutions, and provides advice to consumers for treating bed bug infestations.

Also, as children head back to school this fall, the FTC urges parents to carefully research products that claim to treat head lice infestations.

In both cases, the FTC charged the marketing companies as well as the individuals behind them with deceptive advertising for claiming that their products can stop and prevent bed bug infestations. The Cedarcide defendants also are charged with making deceptive claims that their product can stop and prevent head lice infestations, and that the federal government endorses and is affiliated with their product.

The Cedarcide Industries, Inc. defendants market BEST Yet!, a line of cedar-oil-based liquid products they claim will treat and prevent bed bug and head lice infestations. The defendants sell the product to consumers nationwide. They also sell it to hotels and other commercial establishments for treating bed bugs, and to school districts for treating head lice. Consumers can buy the product online, by phone, at the Cedarcide website , and at Amazon.com. The cost of the products ranges from $29.95 for the quart-sized spray bottle to $3,394.95 for a hotel-motel bed bug eradication kit.

One radio advertisement for the product stated:

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The Bed Bug Resource