No, bed bugs don’t fly; that’s an interesting thing even though they have wing pads that never fully develop into wings, fortunately.
At this point, bed bugs can’t fly, so it’s good that you can put that fear to rest. One of the biggest fears of pest control is the appearance of bugs.
It can take a long time to get rid of them. These bugs can cause many problems and be incredibly difficult to get rid of.
If they could fly, it would be even more dangerous and more of a nightmare.
But at the same time, they have been adapting over the years more and more, which makes them an incredibly dangerous pest that can cause many pest problems in your home if you have bed bugs.
Table of Contents
- Where Do Bed Bugs Come From?
- Where Do Bed Bugs Hide?
- What Do Bed Bugs Hate The Most?
- What Attracts Bed Bugs in Your Home?
Where Do Bed Bugs Come From?
Current bed bugs originated with these bat bugs when, when humans were cave dwellers and lived in caves with bats, they could have been a food source.
Interestingly, bed bugs have existed for a long time.
Evidence shows that they have existed since ancient Egypt, and in some cases, they think they have existed for thousands of years.
A sister species is almost called bat bugs, and these are bed bugs, but they live in caves and feed on bats.
What happened is that some of these bed bugs or bat bugs went with them, and since then, they have evolved more, and now they live in houses and furniture and different things like that.
Interestingly, they have these parallels. It shows that bed bugs are such good hitchhikers that they have moved from caves and bat houses to follow humans worldwide.
That’s something to keep in mind because they have adapted significantly.
They have become more resistant to pesticides and different traditional methods of getting rid of bed bugs over the years.
It’s getting tough and harder to get rid of them.
Where Do Bed Bugs Hide?
Bed bugs will hide in cracks and crevices, along with the bed frames hidden from view.
As I said, they’re excellent hitchhikers.
Remember that they don’t necessarily live in beds; it is a great place where they hide.
Often, you don’t see them, or you don’t notice them because what they do is when they are living in your bed, they only come out to feed.
So you know who will say in the future that bed bugs can develop those wings that could become an option where they could be flying as well.
Still, from now on, they can move around pretty quickly without that ability.
What Do Bed Bugs Hate The Most?
Bed bugs hate heat. The simplest way to eliminate a bed bug infestation is by heat.
Both eggs and adults will expire in less than 10 minutes if exposed to temperatures above 115°.
Although bed bugs hate the heat, you can’t wait for them to die on a hot summer day for a couple of reasons.
First, just because it’s 115° outside doesn’t mean it’s 115° where the bed bugs live in the shade under the bed or in the cool holes inside the walls is much more comfortable.
Still, more importantly, bed bugs are capable of something called diapause. Diapause for insects is a kind of hibernation for bears.
It is a deep sleep in which the bed bug turns off most of its metabolic processes and survives on its energy reserves until it runs out of energy or wakes up and goes into diapause when it gets too hot.
If temperatures are below freezing or if they can’t get food, that’s why putting the bed in garbage bags to try to starve the bed bugs doesn’t work.
Thanks to the diapause, bed bugs can survive more than a year without a meal.
Still, just like a bear will not hibernate if you put it in a large freezer for a few hours.
The bed bugs will not enter the diapause; it only heats up in a short period; the diapause is a reaction to slower environmental changes like the beginning of summer.
What Attracts Bed Bugs in Your Home?
When you’re lying down or sleeping or hanging out in bed, the body heat, the carbon dioxide you breathe attract the bed bugs.
When they come out, they end up injecting you with anesthesia, which numbs the area, so you don’t even know they’re biting.
What can happen is that they will feed on you for a long time before you start noticing signs of bed bug bites, different things like that.
It can often be hard to identify that they are there until you start showing signs that they have been feeding on you.
How to Keep Bed Bugs Away: Best Practices
One thing to keep in mind is that you want to be vigilant when traveling and in your home.
Because even though bed bugs can’t fly, they like to hitchhike in things like luggage and clothes that hang in hotel rooms.
Many times what can happen is that these bed bugs will climb on those things in your luggage or clothes and store them in your carry-on luggage.
They may not be in yours, but if the overhead bins are filled with different luggage from people traveling everywhere, those people might have found bed bugs too.
As I said, they are very tough travelers.
Bed bugs will hitchhike in their carry-on luggage so well that they can’t necessarily fly.
They have found a way to take advantage of our technology and get on planes and travel around the world, and they probably learned that too from those bat bugs.
Bat bugs hook into the bats so that as they fly in different caves going around the world, they can be carrying those back and forth like that, and they can even get into your house as well.
How to Get Rid of BedBugs: Best Practices
I do not recommend that you try to get rid of the bugs on your own.
It is very ineffective and costs a lot, it is a big hassle, and again a few bugs become a big problem quickly.
However, it could be these bat bugs that maybe are living in your attic, or they got into your chimney.
You cannot tell what is what unless you are a trained professional looking under a microscope to tell the difference between these bed bugs and bat bugs.
They are very different treatments based on the problem of the bug and the pest.
You can get to a pest control service because it can be costly and time-consuming if you try to get rid of these bugs on your own. It can be challenging to identify if it is the wrong thing.
Again, I recommend contacting a pest control service if you have any bat bugs or bed bugs.
These bugs don’t fly but have adapted over the years to learn how to take advantage of either throwing on animals that can fly or jumping on the planes with us.
There’s still kind of a threat around the world, so it’s something that needs to be taken into account.
Who knows if in the future those wings will fly too and we might have even more problems with them in the future, so again I hope you have some benefit and value.
