Termite Control

Termites tend to be most prevalent in the warmer countries more than the cooler ones, but if where you live is infected by timber-eating termites, regulating them ought to be towards the top of your priorities, particularly if you are a home-owner or a farmer. Of the 4,000 species of termite, around 400 of them pose a significant threat to wood buildings and crops.

Ants and ant-eaters are the termites natural predators, but this does not help man to control them, so we have resorted to chemicals. Most of the chemicals used to manage termites are fairly safe to humans, their pets and their livestock, although it does no injury to exercise a little caution when spreading them around.

The first thing you ought to do if you want to banish termites from your home, is comprehend a little about them. They like to consume a plank of wood beginning at the end-grain and tunneling up inside it, so before you next redecorate your house, saturate all timber in preservative and termite poison especially the end-grain. Then repaint, stain or varnish everything as normal.

If you make it a problem or unappetizing for them, termites are apt to go for easier pickings. Similarly, if you have walkways, crawling spaces or air ducts, spray them with termiticide. If you have damp patches near the house cure the cause of the damp, because termites are partial to damp earth.

Clear up any mess from around the base of your house such as old leaves and weeds, because that holds moisture as well. If you have a stack of garden refuse, burn it; if you have a compost heap, fork it over on a regular basis and inspect for termites (and carpenter ants).

In a termite colony, it is just the female workers that go out and scavenge. They then take this back to the colony an feed it to the nymphs, the soldiers and the king and queen. If you poison that food source, all those insects will die and the nymphs in the unhatched eggs will starve to death.

Most termiticides act on two levels, there is the poison to be eaten, but there is also an element to the poison that kills on contact, although it might take a time.

If a termite rubs up against this contact poison, it will go home sooner or later where it will groom and get groomed by its fellows, which passes the contact poison all over the nest very quickly.

It can take a week or more for say 90% of the colony to become wiped out, but it could take a further month or so for the remaining 10% to die, because they may be procuring their food from another source.

However, sooner or later they will start taking the dead bodies of their fallen comrades outside and as soon as they do that, they will get a brushing of contact poison as well.

Once this happens their days are numbered even if the poison is a little bit older and a little bit less potent. The trick is not to give up too early and keep checking for a re-infestation, because if they came once, they could come back again.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a lot of subjects, but is at present concerned with pictures of termites. If you are interested in this or if you are wondering: What Does A Termite Look Like?. Please go to our web site now for some more details.