Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Develop New Trap To Capture Bloodsucking Bed Bugs
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Bedbugs (Cimex lectularius) are small blood-sucking insects that can live in cracks and crevices in and around your bed and crawl out at night to bite your exposed skin and feed on your blood, just as mosquitoes do. Now BBC reports that researchers from the Rutgers University Department of Entomology have developed a new trap that has a 77% probability of capturing bed bugs, nearly three times as many bed bugs over 28 days (PDF), as the the Climbup insect interceptor trap, which the authors cite as the best monitor on the market. A better trap design can allow people to detect bed bugs while they are still in small numbers. 'If you have only 10 or 20 bugs in your apartment, it's very hard to see with your eyes,' says Lead author Narinderpal Singh. 'When people realize they have bed bugs they are often already in their thousands, or hundred thousands. It's relatively easy to eradicate the bed bugs when they are in small numbers, but when they are everywhere, it's very hard to eradicate them.' The device can be created at home very cheaply and consists of a plastic dog bowl that's been inverted, with the outer wall covered with a layer of dyed-black surgical tape. The researchers contend that higher walls make their trap more effective than the interceptor trap because it's harder for bugs to escape."
Not really a good point at all. Bedbugs don't hide in the sheets. They hide in the crevices of the mattress, box-springs, bed frame, and surrounding areas. You might find a few bugs crawling the bedsheets, but it's not where they lay their eggs.
Just give us the same thing that got rid of them the last time around. DDT works.
Bedbugs were apparently resistant to DDT by the 1950s.
If you want the real numbers, read the (free) pdf:
http://esa.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/esa/jee/2013/00000106/00000004/art00036
They actually did a pretty thorough job of testing them and various attractants in various levels, and have real numbers in the report.
To attempt to answer you question (which can't be answered 100% accurately because there were many scenarios tested and you and the summary didn't state which was referenced)... not all the bugs got caught; the bugs that did not get caught were generally inactive and lethargic (I'm guessing they were old, or not hungry, etc), so they didn't really count them; the new traps caught about 2.5 fold more bugs given the same lure (or lack thereof); tests were run in a variety of settings, including an arena made from a wooden door and several infested apartments while people were there.
Also, for those wondering, the new trap is:
* inverted plastic dog bowl (600ml volume, 18cm diameter, 6.4cm depth, from IKEA)
* outer wall of bowl was covered with a layer of paper surgical tape (caring international)
* tape was died black with Fiebing's Lether Dye (Tandy Leather Factory)
* Incide of bowls were coated with a light layer of fluoropolymer resin (Bio-Quip products, Rancho Dominguez, CA) to prevent the bugs from crawling out
And the best lure was:
* 150g yeast (Lesaffre Yeast Corp)
* 750g granulated cane sugar (U.S. Sugar Co. Inc)
* 3L water (40degree C)
Fill a plastic tub with the lure mixure, mix it up, put on a lid, and rest it on top of two traps.
Lower amounts of lure stil work (not as well as the above amount, but much better than none - see paper for full details).