Bedbugs are more fertile than scientists had thought. And it doesn't take a lot of food — our blood — for them to reproduce.

A recent study led by Roberto Pereira, an associate research scientist at the University of Florida's entomology and nematology department, found that female bedbugs can produce eggs even if they only eat 5 minutes per week. A bedbug's typical feeding is 10 minutes.
"I expected them to not do very well, to be starved," said Pereira. "But even if they eat very little they can still produce a few eggs."
Pereira's interest in bedbug fertility began a few years ago, when bedbug outbreaks began occurring in public places such as movie theaters, clothing stores and public transportation.
"We were initially trying to see if bedbugs can grow in situations where they don't have access to blood every day," Pereira said, adding that these places are of course frequently occupied by people — just not all the time. For example, a seat at a movie theater that has bedbugs might be empty for a few days if no one sits there.
"The availability of food is limited. The population is going to be less than it would be at home," said Wayne Walker, senior pest control technician at the UF Department of Housing and Residence Education.
Walker said it's important to distinguish between an infestation and an introduction. Public places are more likely to get introductions, Walker said. Households get infestations.
"Bedbugs are opportunistic. They feed whenever they can, and typically that's at night when the food source is available," Walker added.
Pereira's study, which was published last month in the journal Medical and Veterinary Entomology, also found that bedbugs eat an average of two to three times a week for 10 minutes. At that feeding rate, they can make 30-35 eggs a week, three times what was previously believed. And in 11 weeks, a single bedbug can spawn a family of 3,500 — enough to harm a baby in a crib. In 15 weeks, that family's population jumps to about 25,000 bugs — enough to harm adults, Pereira said. That means there are enough bedbugs to suck at a rate of at least 5 percent of a human's blood a month, the maximum monthly threshold for how much blood a person should have drawn.
Rarely, however, do people actually lose this much blood before they notice a bedbug outbreak in their homes. Yet for other people, bedbugs go completely unnoticed. An estimated 35 percent of people who have bedbugs never realize it, Walker said.
"You could get a pretty serious manifestation without even knowing it."
Pereira added, "The biggest mistake people make is thinking the bedbugs aren't doing any harm because they can't feel anything."
Some people get itchy welts or rashes from bedbug bites, but others have no reaction.
While Pereira's study may bode badly for bedbug outbreaks overall, Walker said he isn't worried about the local situation. At UF, he typically sees about four to five cases each year, although this year there haven't been any.
"Most of our issues occur in our family housing units, rented to residents without any furniture," Walker said. "Eighty-five percent are international students and they arrive with just enough money to survive. They get hand-me-down furniture. I've seen them scavenge furniture from off the sidewalks."
But, fortunately, dorms have been virtually untouched, unlike many colleges and universities, Walker added. "There are a lot of places out there that are really, really challenged. Typically, it's gone undetected for a long period of time, so instead of having one room with the problem you have floors of it. When it gets to that level, it becomes a huge issue to solve."
In Gainesville, bedbug problems also have been contained, said Anthony Dennis, director of environmental health at the Alachua County Health Department. Dennis gets about six calls a year about bedbugs — mostly from people who have stayed at a local hotel or motel.
Cody Garber, the supervisor and manager at Gainesville's Brooker Pest Control, said he gets about one to two calls about bedbugs each month, often from people who have just moved into a new apartment or house. Garber suspects there would be more calls if Brooker did treatments other than fumigations, which many people resist because of the cost and inconvenience. Fumigating a small house costs $1,500 to $2,000, Garber said. Fumigations involve clearing the house of all food, medications and people, wrapping a tent around it and injecting vikane gas in the house.
"If you don't get every single inch of that place, you take a chance of not getting it and it could come back in five to six months," Garber said.
And when people don't do those fumigations they risk spreading bedbugs in public places, Walker said.
"They try to self medicate (the house), but the (bedbug) population continues to grow. These are the same people that utilize the same public transportation and movie theaters that the rest of us use. The bedbugs get displaced because that's where people who have issues with them end up."
Contact Kristine Crane at 338-3119 or