Does Uv Light Kill Bed Bugs

There was a recent study that showed that c02 is the most effective attractant for bedbugs.

Does uv light kill bed bugs.

All of us know that bed bugs are keen on darkness and eager to avoid light at all costs but there is no evidence that light can kill the bed bugs. The best chance would be with ultraviolet uv light. Ultraviolet light does kill insects as well and it s commonly used in quarantine labs to keep potentially dangerous insects from escaping into the environment. They usually scurry away from light.

Uv light makes bed bugs more visible. The main reason is heat generation. Ultraviolet light doesn t kill bed bugs and neither does ordinary light. One of the best ways to keep something like bed lines clean is to put them out in the sunlight to kill off all the bed bugs uv light is.

It s also been investigated as a way to kill stored product pests without resorting to pesticides. You can even kill bugs with uv light although it isn t an effective treatment. An ultraviolet emitting light bulb is set to attract mosquitoes into a high voltage electrical wire mesh where the mosquitoes are electrocuted. However uvc light itself has drawbacks such as its indiscriminate killing of insects and toxicity to humans and other mammals.

Most of these devices use fluorescent light bulbs that emit uv light to attract insects. The first link below tells you how to build an effective bedbug trap using dry ice. But even if uv light does make bed bugs glow it isn t necessarily an effective strategy. Thus uvc light the most lethal type of uv light would be far more efficient at killing insects.

Although a uv light will make detecting bed bugs assured you must understand that the light in and of itself will not kill them. I don t think uv light would work for attracting them though it might detect their excrement. Bed bugs prefer the darkness and will go to great lengths to avoid light at all costs but there is no evidence to suggest that light will kill bed bugs. There are passive means of detecting bed bugs which are easier and work better than manually searching.

The light bulb and the wire mesh are housed in a protective grounded metal cage or protective plastic. If the organism can t read the genetic code it can t go on living. Masatoshi hori kazuki shibuya mitsunari sato yoshino saito. Although uv light can be a beneficial tool in both repelling and detecting bed bugs you have to know that light in and off itself will not kill them.

Whether uv light could kill mites on bed depends on the following.