If it’s hard to find the Bed Bug eggs at your home, especially around your bed, you may need to know the appearance of their eggs. After knowing their appearance, it will be easier for you to spot the Bed Bug eggs. However, the Bed Bug eggs will be camouflaged in some of the insects’ favourite hiding spaces.
Thankfully, this post will show you the information about what the Bed Bug eggs look like. Hopefully, you will find the Bed Bug eggs at your home easier, after reading the whole of our post. So, let’s find out the information about the appearance of Bed Bug eggs through our post below!
What Do Bed Bug Eggs Look Like?
After finding the Bed Bug, you may then try to look for their eggs. If you do not know about Bed Bug, it may be harder for you to spot the Bed Bug eggs, even if they’re around your home.
The Bed Bug eggs are very small with white to pearl-white color. Their eggs are barrel-shaped that are about the size of pinhead or also a grain of salt. With their small size, they are easily camouflaged in some of the insects’ favourite hiding spaces including mattresses, especially on the light-coloured fabrics.
When females lay their eggs, they will be covered with a sticky substance which can help adhere them to almost any surface that they place them on. The Bed Bug eggs will have a conspicuous dark mark on them resembling an eye if the eggs are over 5 days old.
Furthermore, the Bed Bug eggs will be found in single eggs or a group of eggs and almost all of them will successfully hatch within 10 days. The hatching time actually depends on temperature where the cooler the temperature, the more time it may take to hatch.
Generally, there are around the same number of female and male eggs. It is known that a Bed Bug population can double every 16 days under ideal conditions, as females will be able to produce a large number of eggs.
Here’s the Bed Bug’s appearance in general:
- Small, the size of a pinhead
- White to pearl-white in color
- Marked by an eyespot if over 5 days old
What Do Adult Bed Bugs Look Like?
In addition to knowing the appearance of Bed Bug eggs, you may also want to know what the adult Bed Bugs look like. It is known that adult Bed Bugs have their own characteristics in general, including:
- Adult Bed Bug’s size is about the size of an apple seed (5-7 mm or 3/16 – ¼ inch long)
- Having long and brown in color with a flat and oval-shaped body.
- Their body is balloon-like with reddish-brown and more elongated.
- A true bug’s characteristic includes a beak with three sections: (1) antenna which has four parts, (2) wings which are not used for flying and (3) hairs with short and golden in color.
- Adult Bed Bugs are smelly with a musty-sweetish’ odor that is produced through glands on the lower side of the body.
During its life time, a Bed Bug will pass through the following stages:
- Eggs (1mm)
- 1st stage nymph (1.5 mm)
- 2nd stage nymph (2 mm)
- 3rd stage nymph (2.5 mm)
- 4th stage nymph (3 mm)
- 5th stage nymph (4.5 mm)
- Unfed adult female
- Unfed adult male
When Do Bed Bug Eggs Hatch?
If you find Bed Bug eggs in your bed, you may wonder whether or not they will hatch and become Bed Bug in your bed. Of course, the Bed Bug eggs found in your bed will hatch there to be immature Bed Bug called nymphs.
However, Bed Bugs undergo three stages including egg, nymph and adult, making them have a simple metamorphosis. The Bed Bug’s metamorphosis is different from insects that pass a complete metamorphosis or one with four stages including egg, larva, pupa and adult.
The Bed Bug eggs commonly need a period of about 6 to 10 days to hatch. When it occurs, nymphs begin looking for their first meal and also complete their first nymph life stage. Once completing each of the five life stages, the nymphs shed their skin called exoskeletons. You may find the shed skin with a naked eye when you are checking for Bed Bug activity.
Furthermore, exoskeletons will appear anywhere Bed Bugs and Bed Bug eggs show up. This is likely to be in the seams of your bed or box spring or other places around your bed. The exoskeletons actually resemble the actual Bed Bugs, but they are a translucent shell and can vary in size depending on the stages of the insects that shed them.
To develop their further stage, they will need a blood meal that is close to their hidings, since they move quite slowly. All Bed Bugs are found in a reproducing population. For more information, the adult Bed Bug will live for about 2 to 4 months, under normal circumstances.
How Do Bed Bugs Feed?
It is also important for you to know where and how Bed Bugs feed. As we’ve mentioned, the Bed Bugs will need a blood meal to survive, while females really need the blood to produce the eggs.
The Bed Bugs commonly prefer to hide near their hosts, as they cannot travel long distances. They are also nocturnal where they will hide during the day and spawn at night to feel while you are sleeping or resting. They feed around 10 minutes for each blood meal.
Over time, the Bed Bugs will spread through the bedroom and move into any protected location. It does not rule out if they also scatter to your nearby rooms or apartments. Having them at your home is not a sign of dirtiness, since the Bed Bugs live solely on blood.
A female Bed Bug commonly lays between 1 and 7 eggs per day and then continues doing this for about 10 days after a blood meal, where she will have to feed again to continue laying their eggs. In general, the more blood meals that a female gets, the more eggs she will produce.
