Most people would think that keeping bed bugs in your home on purpose would be completely insane.  Can you imagine keeping bed bugs in your home intentionally for 38 years?  Harold Harlan, who is an entomologist in Crownsville, Maryland, has been keeping live bed bugs in jars since 1973.  Originally starting his collection with 100 or so bed bugs; his current collection of the little vampires range somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 critters.

PCT Magazine reported on November 30, 2011 that Mr. Harlan obtained his strain of bed bugs while serving in the United States Army as a military entomologist in New Jersey’s Fort Dix.  The bed bugs are kept in glass vials where they live a safe and comfortable lifestyle.  Mr. Harlan has taken on the task of feeding each and every one of the bed bugs (on his own flesh) that he has in his collection by adhering a mesh covering over the vials where the bed bugs are able to feed with ease without the possibility of escaping into his home.

Over the many years of keeping watch over the bugs and cultivating their existence, his colony has grown into a massive research project that has proven to be beneficial to other interested parties.  Through his research of the bed bugs, Mr. Harlan has been able to teach others and dispel quite a bit of false bed bug information that circulates about the bloodsuckers.  Wanting to share the wealth of information that he has gained from studying the bed bugs that he has been the caretaker of, Mr. Harlan gladly shares his bed bugs with other researchers who request both live and/or dead samples.  To date, Mr. Harlan’s bed bugs have been requested and delivered to over 35 different government, private, and educational institutions within the United States.  They have even been given to researchers in Denmark.

You may read this article about this amazing entomologist here.

Researchers are hoping that Mr. Harlan’s bed bug colony will help unlock the key to the secrets about bed bug infestations so that protocol and/or pesticides can be developed that will lead to their eventual demise across the United States as well as around the world.