Mating is necessary to bring about ovarian maturation in females of Anthocoridae and related taxa (Cimicidae). The objectives of this study were to determine how forced delays in mating affect extent and rate of oocyte development, duration of the preoviposition period, and levels of lipid reserves in three species of Anthocoris. Extent of oocyte development by unmated females differed among the three species. In unmated A. tomentosus, the basal oocyte failed to show any increase in size with increasing female age, whereas oocytes in unmated A. nemoralis and A. whitei exhibited some growth beginning 2 days after eclosion. One consequence of these differences among species is that a forced delay in mating (of 3 or 10 days) had less of an effect on A. whitei and A. nemoralis than on A. tomentosus, in terms of the length of the preoviposition period measured from the time of mating. Mated females of A. nemoralis and A. whitei grew larger oocytes than unmated females within 2 days of mating, whereas the same phenomenon took 4 days in A. tomentosus. Embryos became visible in the eggs of mated A. nemoralis and A. whitei 2–3 days after mating, compared with 5 days after mating for A. tomentosus. Mature eggs with egg caps were visible within 3, 4, and 6 days after mating for A. nemoralis, A. whitei, and A. tomentosus, respectively. In all three species, unmated females 10 days after eclosion had significantly higher levels of lipids allocated to nonreproductive tissues than similarly aged females that had been mated on the day of eclosion, suggesting that there was a trade-off between allocation of resources to eggs and allocation to somatic reserves.