The bean plant leaf traps and kills bed bugs

Sunday, June 02, 2013 by: Antonia
Tags: bed bugs, insecticide, bean leaves

(NaturalNews) Bed bugs may soon become a more manageable pest, as they may fall victim to new science that mimics bean plant leaves.

Bed bugs live in beds as you might have guessed. They hide during the day and feed on the blood of humans at night. Tens of millions of dollars are spent annually in New York City alone to deal with these pests.

More than just the infestation of homes, bedbugs have been sucking the blood of victims in schools, movie theaters, and hospitals. They are hitchhikers, great hiders, and rapid breeders.

The bean leaf bedbug trap

It has been discovered that microscopic filaments on the bean leaf wrap around the feet of bedbugs, or even impale them, and prevent them from moving further, acting as a trap.

This remedy for bedbugs has been used for centuries by those in Bulgaria, Serbia and other Eastern European countries. They lay the leaves around the bed at night and as the bugs scurry across the floor to gain access to the victim, they end up "sticking" to the leaves. The leaves, in the traditional way of doing things, are then burned in the morning.

Default behavior to kill insects is to use poison. However with the shocking comeback of these bugs in recent years across the world, it suggests a resistance to the poisons.

A 'green' approach to eliminating bedbugs

"The resurgent bed bug populations show a worrisome resistance to insecticides, which makes a non-insecticide approach very attractive," said researcher Catherine Loudon, an entomologist at the University of California, Irvine.

There is an attempt being made to mimic the results of the "bean leaf trap" using synthetic material. The "hooks" on the leaf, called trichomes, essentially "stab" or "hook" the bugs and keep them from moving further.

"Plants exhibit extraordinary abilities to entrap insects," Loudon said. "Modern scientific techniques let us fabricate materials at a microscopic level, with the potential to 'not let the bed bugs bite' without pesticides."

With the synthetic technique, currently impalement does not occur, but some trapping does, so more work is to be done.

Sources for this article include:

scientificamerican.com

news.yahoo.com

https://www.naturalnews.com/030501_bedbugs_New_York.html

About the author:
A science enthusiast with a keen interest in health nutrition, Antonia has been intensely researching various dieting routines for several years now, weighing their highs and their lows, to bring readers the most interesting info and news in the field. While she is very excited about a high raw diet, she likes to keep a fair and balanced approach towards non-raw methods of food preparation as well. >>> Click here to see more by Antonia