Jan 16, 2011 - Bed Bugs - Excellent Eaten Raw
QUESTION:
What if any are the natural predators of bed bugs? Thank you!
ANSWER:
A fairly large number of other arthropods are known to feed on The Common Bed Bug, but none of them has ever shown the ability to reduce a population of these bugs once they are inside a structure. And, introducing another bug to someone's home in the hope that it will feed on the unwanted bugs is generally unacceptable to most people. This is especially so when we consider what some of those predators are. These include a couple of spiders, wind scorpions (solpugids), a number of species of ants including fire ants, and a couple of assassin bugs. Releasing a population of any of these predators into a bedroom is just not going to set well with the customer, and since the bugs hide so well and breed so quickly, there really aren't going to be positive results. There is even some anecdotal evidence that American roaches and House mice feed on bed bugs, but again only in low numbers if at all.
This is one more reason that bed bugs are difficult to control - we are extremely limited in IPM opportunities for them, and just letting nature take care of itself does not fit with this pest. I heard it from a reliable source that one state had a brochure available for homeowners, offering guidelines for dealing with bed bugs, and one suggestion was to "eliminate food resources". Clearly this is not going to work for bed bugs, since it is the people that are the food resource, and starving the bugs to death by leaving the home is not effective, since the bugs can survive up to 1 year without feeding. It stands to reason that with a problem such as this there is going to be a lot of misinformation available, particularly on the internet. So, you probably will have people tell you that predators and parasites would do an effective job in bed bug elimination, so why use those dangerous pesticides? We can counter this with accurate information and education.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
What if any are the natural predators of bed bugs? Thank you!
ANSWER:
A fairly large number of other arthropods are known to feed on The Common Bed Bug, but none of them has ever shown the ability to reduce a population of these bugs once they are inside a structure. And, introducing another bug to someone's home in the hope that it will feed on the unwanted bugs is generally unacceptable to most people. This is especially so when we consider what some of those predators are. These include a couple of spiders, wind scorpions (solpugids), a number of species of ants including fire ants, and a couple of assassin bugs. Releasing a population of any of these predators into a bedroom is just not going to set well with the customer, and since the bugs hide so well and breed so quickly, there really aren't going to be positive results. There is even some anecdotal evidence that American roaches and House mice feed on bed bugs, but again only in low numbers if at all.
This is one more reason that bed bugs are difficult to control - we are extremely limited in IPM opportunities for them, and just letting nature take care of itself does not fit with this pest. I heard it from a reliable source that one state had a brochure available for homeowners, offering guidelines for dealing with bed bugs, and one suggestion was to "eliminate food resources". Clearly this is not going to work for bed bugs, since it is the people that are the food resource, and starving the bugs to death by leaving the home is not effective, since the bugs can survive up to 1 year without feeding. It stands to reason that with a problem such as this there is going to be a lot of misinformation available, particularly on the internet. So, you probably will have people tell you that predators and parasites would do an effective job in bed bug elimination, so why use those dangerous pesticides? We can counter this with accurate information and education.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
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