Bed Bugs Beware!

Bed Bugs where thought to be all but irradiated after then end of World War 2 but in recent decades the little pests have been making a comeback. Here in the UK, we have seen growing numbers of bed bugs, the reason for this being people travelling between countries and beds bugs growing resistance to chemicals. British Pest control expert Ranjen Gohri warned: “Bed bugs are becoming more and more common in the UK, and we’re close to approaching epidemic levels. We estimate there has been around a three-fold surge in bed bugs in recent years, based on information from our pest controllers. It is a particular problem in highly-populated areas where the bugs can spread easily.”

However recent developments in the United States may prove useful for us and start the downfall of Bed Bugs.  Fungal biopesticide shows promise for the control of bed bugs as it proves handy against bed bugs that are insecticide resistant. The fungal biopesticide works as bed bugs that cross the barrier acquire fungal spores and go on to spread these among insects that remain in their shelters (typically on baseboards and in cracks, crevices, and folded areas of beds), resulting in greater than 95 percent mortality within a week. It was noted in a recent article on news.psu.edu that the "fungal biopesticide was equally effective against all bedbug — including those with insecticide resistance — achieving mortality rates from 95.5 percent to 99 percent within 14 days."

Let’s hope this can add to our arsenal to combat Bed Bugs here.