• Development Time. Development time depends on temperature and food supply. The nymphs molt five times, as they grow larger. Development to the adult stage takes as little as one or two months, but usually longer.
• Breeding season. Breeding can occur throughout the year in warmer regions. Egg laying activity is suspended during winter if rooms are allowed to cool, but adults and nymphs can still over winter under these conditions.
• Egg production. Each female bedbug lays 50 to 200 eggs at the rate of 3 or 4 eggs per day. The eggs are laid singly or in clusters and are cemented to wood, fabrics, or other surfaces where the bugs hide. At temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, egg hatch occurs in 6 to 17 days. Hatching may take up to 28 days at lower temperatures.

Courtesy of Purdue University Entomology Extension

 

   

• Night feeders. Bed bugs emerge from their hiding places at night to feed. They may occasionally feed during the day if very hungry and lighting conditions are dim. A bedbug usually does not feed every night, but at intervals up to a week. Newly hatched nymphs feed as soon as possible, and then feed once between molts. If left undisturbed, a bedbug can obtain a full blood meal in 3 to 5 minutes. The bugs prefer to be in enclosed places and often feed where clothing is held tightly against the skin, such as underneath the waistband of pajamas.
• The bite. The bite is usually not felt at first but later may itch, swell, burn, become inflamed, or form a welt. Effects of a bite vary with the individual but may persist for a week or more in susceptible persons.
• Survival. Bed bugs can live for 4 to 12 months without feeding. The bugs will survive longer without a meal at lower temperatures.

• Hosts. Hosts of the common bedbug include man, mice, rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, horses, cattle, and poultry.
• Disease. There is no evidence that bedbugs transmit any diseases, at least within the United States. The CDC is conducting research to consistently maintain this statement.
• Severe infestation. In severe infestations the bugs will also be found behind baseboards, window and door casings, picture moldings, loosened wallpaper, cracked plaster, or in furniture.
• Sure signs. Brown or black spots or dried excrement found around hiding places or in bedding is evidence of bed bug infestation. Eggs, eggshells, and molted skins may be found in bedbug hiding places as well.

• Offensive odor. Infestations of bed bugs may be detected by the offensive odor associated with them. The odor is caused by an oily secretion produced from special glands, and is described as smelling like "old dirty laundry" in light infestations, becoming stronger in heavy infestations.

• Luggage riders. Bed bugs often find their way into the luggage of travelers and spread in this manner.
• Furniture. Secondhand furniture, furniture removed from a storage facility and rental furniture are all possible sources of infestation,
• Bedbug migration. If the occupants of a home or apartment infested with bed bugs move out, the bugs may migrate to other nearby dwellings. Large multi-unit buildings can be very difficult to rid of bed bugs.  Once they become established, any control effort that does not include concurrent inspection of all units, together with a coordinated program of treatment and occupant education, is usually doomed to fail, because the bugs will frequently move from any partially treated, potentially repellent active site to adjacent rooms or floors.  They readily move through wall voids, along utility lines, heating ducts, elevator shafts, and laundry or mail chutes.