Last year, the number of reported bedbug cases at hotels, motels and apartments more than doubled from the previous year.

Inspection reports kept by state officials who regulate hotel sanitation show bedbug cases increased from only eight in 2008 to 41 in 2009 to 96 in 2010.

Nearly half of the state’s 67 counties have had at least one report within the past three years, with Broward and Orange counties — home to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando — having the most. Broward County recorded 25 cases and Orange 20 since 2008.

Bedbugs tend to spread faster in large cities that attract international tourists and in cities that host large transient populations in multi-family apartment buildings.

Experts point to frequent international travel and the bedbugs’ ability to develop quick resistance to pesticides as the major causes for the increase in infestations here and nationally.

Illustrating the widespread scope of the problem, the federal government today is wrapping up its second annual National Bedbug Summit. The two-day meeting aims to help communities understand the problem and develop strategies to control it, especially through public education.

Although the data indicates a rising problem in Florida, it tells just a fraction of the story. Hotels, motels and apartments are not required to report bedbug infestations.

All of the recorded cases stem from routine inspections and complaints filed with the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

“We really don’t have a good feel for the extent of the problem in Florida yet,” said Michael Page, chief of the bureau of entomology and pest control at the Florida Division of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Last year, inspectors cited two inns in Sarasota for bedbugs: the Sunset Inn on North Tamiami Trail and the Tides Inn on Siesta Key.

But there were at least a half-dozen other cases in hotels, motels and apartment buildings in Sarasota, Charlotte and Manatee counties, according to the local pest control companies Macy’s and Fahey’s.

The bedbug stigma hampers reporting, making infestations hard to track down to their source and harder to eradicate.

“It’s one of those things that a lot of people have an issue with. Personally if I had bedbugs, I wouldn’t want anybody to know,” Page said. “Hotels, typically, they’re even more apt to not report something than they are to report it.”

Disturbing as they are, bedbugs can be prevented and eliminated. Pest experts say people should check headboards and the seams of mattresses at hotels for brownish insects the size apple seeds. It is also a good idea to keep luggage off the floor on a luggage rack.

Periodic inspections at home can help pinpoint an infestation before it gets out of hand.

Managers of the Sarasota inns that had bedbug problems last summer say they have wiped out the insects and now pay pest companies to do routine inspections.

At the Sunset Inn on North Tamiami Trail, a bedbug problem persisted for most of May last year in two rooms. The state would not allow those rooms to be rented while exterminators tried to eradicate the bugs.

Now, the bugs are gone, said Shailesh Vyas, owner of the inn. Vyas said he pays Ecolab to treat and inspect the rooms monthly.

Kelly Lykins, manager of the Tides Inn on Siesta Key, said she had just one room with bedbugs and suspects they were brought in by a European traveler who had been in New York City.

“That same person who brought them, he was the only one who complained and the only one bit,” Lykins said.

She said Macy’s Termite & Pest Control immediately snuffed out the bugs in early April.

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