Terminating Termites: Avoiding Wood-Eating Insects

Most termites are subterranean, living in tunnels that can be hundreds of feet from their food source and tunneling to and from that new diner they intend to feast at inside your home. They will construct tubes above ground when necessary to prevent moisture loss and attack by their natural enemy the ant.

Termites and ants are not related even though they look a lot alike to some people. Cockroaches are actually who they call aunty and are listed in the family photo album.

Termites are actually quite interesting, for an insect, building fungus farms, huge above ground mounds complete with air-conditioning that can keep the interior at a very near perfect + or - one degree Celsius. A feat some humans might find worthy of copying and all without a single nuclear reactor....

The termite has a social structure similar to ants or bees with three main components. Like us, they have workers that make everything happen even going so far as feeding the ones that cannot feed themselves. They have an army, although their army should probably get some training from ours as self sacrifice is their primary weapon, performed by jamming the tunnels with their own heads or providing delaying action as the workers seal them off from the nest, leaving them to the mercy of the invaders. Both tactics are effective, but not terribly intelligent by modern standards of military conflict. Finally we come to the last caste in their social system, the breeding populace, producing more members for the present colony or winging their way to new areas and starting a little colony all their own when the time is right.

Termites can be difficult to control. They even avoid their own dead or sick members and will wall them off if they feel the need. Making biological control more difficult to achieve, since it is very dependant on contact with other termites to spread it, and it dies with the host if it is not spread to other members of a termite colony. Crafty little buggers!

Methods of treating include:

Baits- Baits work slowly and can take quite a bit of time to find a feeding site worth baiting to be effective. Also baiting is more environmentally friendly and requires less chemical components than other methods.

Soil barriers- trenched into the ground all around the home it forms a chemical barrier

Treated zones, a slow acting method of planting chemically treated wood to feast upon that can spread to the entire colony by returning revelers.

Prevention is the best termite medicine!

Avoid moisture accumulation at the foundation; termites have to have moisture to live. Use down spouts on gutters, splash blocks and grading to divert water away from the home. If necessary the use of drain tiles will allow water to flow away from the foundation, helping to dry out the lair and make life tough for our wood eating neighbors that try to stay in the neighborhood.

Clear away any wood products, stumps, etc from near the foundation for several feet around your home. Keeping termite snacks away from your home may prevent your home from becoming one on its own.

Alternative measures used in construction include:

Pressure treated woods

Borates/ chemically treated wood

Physical barriers made to block termite entry points around pipes, etc.

Biological controls ... nematodes and fungus injected into a colony and not always effective as they tend to die when the hosts die, and have no future affect.

Termites can eat soft plastic pipes, lead pipes, caulking and other softer building materials. They can eat their way through foam insulation to get to the wood.

An annual inspection will make the difference between sitting on your deck watching nature at its finest and lying under your deck watching some of natures finest finishing off an appetizer that once supported your weight in a lawn chair.

Sources:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2092.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termite