Bed Bug Eggs

There are many ways to identify the eggs of bed bugs. And because they look like the eggs of other insects of the same size, you’ll need to take a closer look at some details.

People usually see them at the site of the infestation, where adult bed bugs hide. The eggs are most often clustered very close together, and eggshells are scattered throughout the area.

The bugs don’t hatch simultaneously. That’s why its eggshells are commonly found near unhatched eggs. They are a waste product of the first eggs that hatch during an infestation.

Spend more time to observe the bed bugs infestation area. Otherwise, you may confuse the bed bugs for something else and ignore them. Only a few insects or eggs are enough to start a whole new infestation inside your home.

Image by: louento.pix / Flickr

What Do Bed Bug Eggs Look Like?

You’re not the only person who has ever wondered what bed bug eggs look like! Although it might be challenging to identify these microscopic troublemakers, being aware of what to look for can help detect an infestation early.

The tiny eggs of bed bugs are around the size of a pinhead (1 mm). They appear translucent or slightly shiny and are pearly white in colour. You may see a small dark patch within if they have been there for a few days; this is the emerging bug. They are frequently grouped together in obscure areas like furniture crevices, mattress seams, or even under wallpaper.

One of the trickiest things about bed bug eggs is that they stick to surfaces with a glue-like substance, so they don’t just fall off easily. Vacuuming won’t always get rid of them because of this! If you find what looks like tiny white grains of rice or salt stuck in a crevice, it’s time to take action.

What Do Dead Bed Bug Eggs Look Like?

Dead bed bug eggs often appear shrivelled, dry, or slightly darker than live ones. While fresh eggs are pearly white and slightly translucent, dead eggs may turn yellowish or brown as they decay. However, they can still stick to surfaces, making removal important.

When Do Bed Bug Eggs Hatch?

The Bed Bug Life Cycle

Bed bugs do not come out of nowhere; they go through a full life cycle before becoming the annoying little pests that keep you awake at night.

1. Egg stage (0-10 days) – Bed bugs lay their eggs in hidden areas such as mattress seams, furniture gaps, and behind wallpaper. Usually, a period of about 6 to 10 days is required for the bed bug eggs to hatch, and that’s when the trouble begins.
2. Nymph stage (5 stages in about 5 weeks total) – When baby bed bugs (called nymphs) hatch, they’re super tiny and almost transparent. To grow, they need to feed on blood—yes, that means biting you! After each meal, they moult (shed their skin) and move to the next stage. This happens five times before they reach adulthood, and they get darker and bigger with each stage.
3. Adult stage – After around five weeks, the bed bug has fully developed to the size of an apple seed and is reddish-brown. Now they’re ready to repeat the cycle – females can lay hundreds of eggs in their lifespan, which is why infestations can spread so quickly! Under normal circumstances, adult bed bugs will live for about 2 to 4 months.

Are There Any Special Conditions for the Eggs to Hatch

There are number of conditions that are required in order for the bed bug eggs to hatch. Most insects need similar conditions to hatch and bed bugs are not an exception. Most important factors defining a bed bug hatch are:

• Heat – The perfect temperature is from 20°C to 30 °C
• Humidity – The best levels of moisture in the air should be about 70 – 85%
• Pesticide-free environment – There are compounds that destroy the bed bug eggs. Some make the newly hatched nymphs die almost instantly after hatching. Though the eggs are resilient to most pesticides, the lack of them is one of the conditions needed for the bed bug eggs to hatch.
• Oxygen – Insects absorb oxygen from the atmosphere through their exoskeleton. Once the nymphs are hatched they need plenty of it to develop into adult bed bugs

These are only the basic conditions needed for bed bug eggs to hatch. There are other factors, such as natural predators. If they are anywhere nearby the eggs or the young nymph, the crawling insects don’t stand a chance.

Can Bed Bug Eggs Survive on Their Own?

Bed bug eggs can survive without adult bed bugs. They don’t require parental care to hatch. As long as conditions are right (temperature and humidity), they will hatch on their own, even if the adult bed bugs are gone.

Where Can You Find Bed Bug Eggs?

Generally, you can find bed bug eggs at the very same places where adult bugs hide during the day. Check the most common areas that get infested in homes and commercial buildings. The area around your bed.

• Under and inside the mattress
• Box spring or bed frame
• Inside luggage and suitcases
• Home appliances, light switches and electrical switches
• Furniture and shelves in the bedroom
• Behind wallpaper
• Behind pictures
• Cracks and crevices in the entire property
• Carpets

No matter where you find the bed bugs, we recommend you take immediate action for their removal. A female bed bug can lay about 500 eggs. Even if you miss one spot, you will not get rid of the crawling insects completely. Wait for a while after your pest control attempts. If bed bugs reappear, contact professional pest control experts.

Bed Bug Eggs on the Mattress

Making sure that the eggs you found on the mattress were laid by bed bugs is easy to achieve by finding actual living bugs. You should start by identifying how the bed bugs may have possibly entered your home.

Some of the most common reasons for a bed bug infestation is luggage. Bed bugs get in it while people travel and stay in hotel rooms.

No matter how the bugs get in, most of them will concentrate on your mattress. The reason for this is their feeding habits. Bed bugs crawl out at night and feed off the blood of whoever is lying on the bed. They inject an anticoagulant that causes skin rash and other similar non-life-threatening reactions.

We recommend our detailed guide on bed bugs on mattresses. It provides all the information on the subjects such as:

• How to check your mattress for bed bugs and eggs
• What to do next
• Working solutions on how to treat the infested mattress
• How to prevent further infestations on your mattress

How to Kill Bed Bug Eggs

There is a variety of ways to remove the bed bugs eggs. They are treated in a similar way as other insects species, with some exceptions. You have to think about what per cent of the eggs will hatch after the treatment. This depends entirely on the type of products used during treatment.

A stiff brush will damage the surface of the eggs and will destroy them. The problem is you won’t be able to reach tiny crevices and narrow areas with such type of brush.

Vacuuming is also a solution. It does not provide 100% efficiency in removing the eggs. This means you will only deal with them partially if you try to destroy the bed bug eggs with a vacuum cleaner. Remove the attachment of the vacuum cleaner to increase the suction power. This helps with removing bed bugs and their eggs from surfaces when they are stuck inside them. Avoid using the bristle attachment, it is likely to scatter bed bugs across the room. If they land on random items in the property, it will be close to impossible to locate them on your own. Do not dispose of the vacuum can inside the house. Go outside and put everything inside a plastic bag, then seal it properly. Do not expose others to the same type of pest infestation.

If all else fails, you can always rely on professional bed bug treatment for quick and effective extermination. The heat treatment for bed bugs is particularly effective against eggs as it destroys the infestation in all its life stages.

What Products Kill Bed Bug Eggs

Bed bugs are not exactly killed by any form of a pesticide product. Instead, scientists measure how bed bug eggs react to certain substances. Will they remain fertile after being treated? If most bed bug eggs hatch, the product from the experiment proves as inefficient.

There are many factors that make some products good or not so suitable for treating bed bug eggs. Some of these important factors are:

• Resistance to substances – Bed bugs are resilient to plenty of chemicals and become even tougher with time.
• Permeability of chemicals – This measures if a certain compound is able to penetrate the shell of the bed bug egg and if yes, to what extent.
• The exact bed bug strain in the experiment.

Pyrethroid-based products used on bed bug eggs show not so efficient results. Approximately 84% of the eggs hatch, despite the fact that they have been sprayed with the chemical. Up to 99% of the nymphs that hatch from these eggs survive afterwards.

To sum up, pyrethroid-based products are only 15% efficient. This is much less than satisfying.

Halogenated pyrrole, on the other hand, allows more nymphs to hatch. About 90% of the eggs remain fertile. Almost all nymphs die right after leaving the eggshell.

A mix of neonicotinoid and pyrethroid is much better than pyrethroid-based products. It is not as good as the halogenated pyrrole, though. This compound has a great effect on the eggs. It destroys completely about 87% of them and only 13% of the eggs remain fertile and hatch. The nymphs coming out are likely to survive but roughly about 38% perish.

These results are from a study by the Entomological Society of America. It is available on various sources on the web, including the Journal of Economic Entomology.

To get the most of any pesticide products for bed bugs, we recommend reading the label. It provides a lot of information about the usage of the product and what situations it’s most suitable for.

What Temperature Kills Bed Bug Eggs Instantly

The temperature at which bed bugs die is called a “thermal death point”. Under a certain temperature, the bed bug in all life stages starts to dehydrate. The bugs die in a few hours, depending on how high the temperature is.

The thermal death point for bed bug eggs, nymphs, and adult bugs is 45°C. A 1.5 hour of exposure to this temperature will exterminate the bugs at all life stages. If you raise the temperature a bit to 48°C, the time required to kill the bed bugs becomes 3 times lower – only 30 minutes.

When heat treatment is the only solution, technicians use specialised equipment. With it, the premises are heated to the required temperature. Pest control professionals work in a very well-controlled environment.

The procedure has higher costs than standard spraying with insecticides. Though, it gives quick results with up to 100% effectiveness. It is often preferred as a guaranteed method for bed bugs control.

Check also: How to prepare for bed bug heat treatment

How to Kill Bed Bug Eggs in Furniture

Upholstered furniture infested with bed bugs is most troublesome. It’s much harder to treat it without ruining the surface. The fabric of any upholstery provides much better hiding for the bugs as they get deep into it.

Heat treatment would do the job for any furniture but most people try to avoid the cost of this service. Heat treatment is more expensive than a lot more popular alternatives.

Vacuuming works very well for exterminating bed bugs inside furniture if done properly. We have a few tips that will help you get the most of this method of eradication.

• Focus on the cracks and crevices. Bed bugs avoid staying on flat surfaces of furniture, they will get as deep as they can. It’s often required to disassemble furniture to get access to bed bug eggs and living insects. You should do it as well if you are certain that the furniture is not bed bug-free.
• Apply a bit of diatomaceous earth inside cracks. If there are living bed bugs that crawl on top of it, their exoskeleton will be lethally damaged. Apply some of the powder on living bed bugs if you notice any as well.
• In case you identify any bed bug eggs, move the furniture into a separate room. Keep infested objects there only. This way you have only 1 room that will be heat treated. The rest of the property still needs to be inspected.

Heat treating only one room saves a lot of time and costs.

Read more: How to Get Rid of Bed Bugs 

Does Steam Cleaning Kill Bed Bug Eggs

Using steam to eradicate bed bug eggs is a very effective method when you do it the right way. There are plenty of things to consider before steam cleaning any bed bug eggs.

• Use a proper steamer. A commercial steamer with a capacity of at least 3-4 litres will do the job. It’s also best if it is equipped with a steam volume control.
• Avoid the usage of carpet cleaning machines. They are not good enough in reaching the temperature at which bed bugs die.
• Streamers are much more suitable for injecting a high temperature on flat surfaces. They are not so reliable if you have to treat tiny crevices and cracks. They are also not suitable for steaming clothes because of the high temperature.
• Set the temperature of the steamer to approximately 71°C to 82°C

If you don’t know how to use a steamer, or don’t have one, better seek professional advice. You also have the option to schedule a pest treatment with a local company.

Can You Squish Bed Bug Eggs?

Yes, you can squish bed bug eggs, but it’s not as easy as crushing an adult bed bug. The eggs are tiny, smooth, and have a protective outer shell. If you press hard enough, they will break, but since they are often glued to surfaces like mattress seams and cracks, simply squishing them may not remove them entirely.

FAQ About Bed Bugs Eggs

These are the questions we receive most often from customers. They want to know how to cope with the bed bug eggs, which they have found in their home:

Q: Does heat treatment kill bed bug eggs?

A: The bed bugs heat treatment is very effective if you want to kill bed bug eggs. It’s actually the best way to make sure that bed bugs in any life stage will be completely exterminated. As long as the treatment is done professionally, it comes with a few months guarantee.

Maintaining a temperature of 45 °C for at least an hour inside a room is enough to kill bed bugs in all life stages. This includes eggs, nymphs, and adult bed bugs. Skilled pest control technicians are responsible for heating the rooms inside buildings. They also track the temperature during the treatment and do changes to the settings.

By increasing the temperature, the time, required for the bed bugs extermination drops. Air at a temperature of 48 °C should kill bed bugs for approximately 20 minutes.

*Heat treatment is more expensive than other bed bugs control methods.
*In the past, it’s been a reason for fires inside building, treatments are now much more advanced.
*Do not make attempts to heat treat your property or clothes on your own. It may lead to structural damage or even life-threatening risks

Q: What do bed bug nests look like?

Unlike ants or bees, bed bugs don’t build structured nests. Instead, they gather in hidden areas where they feel safe. A “bed bug nest” is really just a cluster of bed bugs, eggs, shed skins, and droppings all in one spot.

Q: Do bed bugs lay eggs on clothes you’re wearing?

A: No, bed bugs typically do not lay eggs on clothing that you are actively wearing. They prefer hidden, undisturbed areas. However, bed bugs can crawl onto clothes, and eggs might be found on clothing left in an infested area.

Q: Does alcohol kill bed bug eggs?

A: Using alcohol can barely help you with the extermination of bed bug eggs. It is a solvent that causes damage to the egg to some extent, however, it is certainly not enough to kill all eggs. Only a very concentrated alcohol substance proves to be effective. Mind that it’s very dangerous for domestic application and we advise against its usage.

Get your home inspected by a certified pest technician!