HOW CAN I TELL IF I HAVE TERMITES IN MY HOME?

SIGNS OF GROUND TERMITES

• Flying winged termites are often visible in your home when they swarm, or you may find wings they have shed.
• Damaged wood has the remains of mud tubes attached to wood tunnels in irregular patterns. White termites are also often found in the infested wood
• Mud tubes extending from the ground to the woodwork or foundation walls are also a sign of termites. Each tube is about the diameter of a lead pencil.

WHERE SHOULD I INSPECT FOR DAMAGE?

• Use a screwdriver to probe wood in your basement or crawl space to see if it’s been damaged.
• Check for damage along the exterior and interior surfaces of the house foundation.
• Also, look at window sills, joists, support posts, basement window frames, wood porches, cracks in cement, expansion joints, scrap wood piles, tree stumps, fence posts and exterior frames of basement windows.

TERMITE CASTE SYSTEM

Termites are social insects that live in colonies where labor is divided among a caste system, which consists of workers, soldiers, winged reproductives, and a king and queen termite. Termites have the ability to change from one caste type to another during their immature stages. This allows the colony to change the proportion of different caste members if the need arises.

Workers

Workersrepresent the majority of the colony population and are responsible for caring for the eggs, constructing and maintaining tunnels, foraging for food, and feeding and grooming other caste members. They are white and soft-bodied.

SOLDIERS

Soldiersare responsible for defending the colony. They are white, soft bodied with an enlarged, hardened head containing two large jaws, or mandibles. Mandibles are used as a weapon against predators.

WINGED REPRODUCTIVES

Winged reproductivesproduce the offspring in the colony and swarm at certain times of the year. Colonies can have both primary reproductives (one king and one queen), and hundreds of secondary reproductives to assist in egg laying and colony growth.

QUEEN TERMITE

The Queen termite creates the colony by laying eggs and tending to the colony until enough workers and nymphs are produced to care for the colony. She can live for more than ten years and produce thousands of eggs each year. Colonies can have several million termites with the help of secondary queens who also produce eggs.

COMMON KINDS OF TERMITES

Termites are identified by the appearance of the swarmers, their damage, and the droppings they leave behind. There are three major groups of termites that occur in the United States: dry wood, subterranean and formosan. The two most common types are dry wood and subterranean or ground termites.

Bites by brown recluse spiders usually occur when people put on clothing or shoes in which a spider is hiding. Some bites occur at night when a spider hunting for insect prey has crawled onto a bed and is squeezed by a person rolling in his or her sleep.

The amount of venom injected by the spider, depending on the spider’s size and recency of having expended venom on prey determines the seriousness of the bite. Victims may have no initial reaction, but they usually feel an immediate, painful stinging sensation at the bite site. The venom does not contain a neurotoxin, but it contains factors which cause blockage of blood vessels in the skin near the bite.