Indeed, who can help?
Clearly, entomologists and PMPs. And some public health departments—but obviously not ours (okay, remembering to be positive, not yet).
But it’s excruciating to wait for them to figure things out.
This week at the Purdue Pest Management Conference (PDF) there are only two bed bug presentations:
Bed Bugs – Update on Their Control
Changlu Wang, Rutgers University
Changlu, a leading research authority on bed bug behavior, biology, and management, will discuss the latest research findings and how they can be implemented for greater success in dealing with this rapidly expanding pest.
and
Bed Bugs in Hotels and Other Housing Facilities
Stoy Hedges, Terminix Sponsored by Terminix
Stoy has data on bed bugs and their management from hotels around the U.S. He will present the data and its significance, especially as relates to IPM for bed bugs in commercial sleeping facilities. Prevention, inspection, and monitoring IPM programs will be stressed.
Meanwhile, over in the UK, the researchers at Sheffield University have found some of the seminal fluid proteins that get transferred during mating and potentially play roles in reproductive fitness. (This is more interesting than it sounds, but the sex lives of bed bugs are sadly not our brief here at New York vs Bed Bugs.)
And these were the bed bug presentations at the last Entomological Society of America annual meeting in November, down from what was surely an all-time high the year before.
I guess bed bugs are running out the clock this round. (Just trying the extreme optimism thing.)
There is one paper that we should talk about soon though because it’s a study of multi-unit buildings. But it raises so many difficult questions, I’m not sure how to approach it. Take a look.
These pages may be of related interest:
- Detecting bed bugs using bed bug monitors, Rutgers Cooperative Extension
- Bite sensitivity, ciao Johnson, post-feeding behavior, signals and more: ESA meeting abstracts
- More incidence clues: bed bugs in Denmark (plus Busvine reflecting on bed bugs in 1984)
- Baited pitfall traps for bed bugs
- DE vs chlorfenapyr
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