Bed Bug Population Explosion

How fast do bed bugs multiply?

Let’s suppose that you fly to England and pick up a few bed bugs when you pick up your carry-on luggage. You might want to do a little math as to how fast your problem will multiply. Here’s a bit of a rundown on the number of bed bugs you will be battling within a few months. Using information that we know about bed bugs, namely that females lay approximately 200 and 500 eggs in in her lifetime, eggs hatch in ten days and nymphs develop into adults in 60 days and are then able to reproduce, here is a conservative estimate of what will happen.

First two months: Between Day 1 and Day 70, you may not even notice that you have bed bugs as the nymphs are tiny and so are their bites. Around the two month mark, the population will increase to between 100 and 200 bugs, most of them being in the nymph stage.

At three months: The nymphs will have turned into adults, have feasted on you and laid babies in your box spring and the cracks of your bedframe. You may be able to find adults at this stage and will start to see black smears or blood stains on the sheets.

At Six Months: Your bed bug colony will skyrocket with a population in the 1,000 to 4,000 range.

The best time to kill bed bugs is six months ago. The second best time to kill them is today! The population will just keep doubling every couple of months, making the likelihood of transferring the infestation to another room much greater.

Bed bugs stay close to their host – you – for quite a few months. As time passes, the female bed bug is fed up with the male bed bug harassing her to mate and she takes a hike to enjoy more solitude. That’s when your problems will begin in earnest.

Here’s some pictures of a serious infestation taken at a rooming house we treated.