Termite Habits

Ground termites are some of the most destructive household pests in the United States. Among all wood insects, they are the most destructive to homes. When termites attack wood, the damage could cost up to $2 billion dollars.

In fact, each year, approximately that amount is the total damage caused by ground termites alone. That’s larger than even the property damage caused by fire and windstorm combined.

Hence, it is no surprise then that controlling termites is a primary concern of homeowners, especially those living in areas that are especially susceptible to ground termite colonies, such as Texas.

In order to deal with the problem of termite infestation, like prevent it for example, you need to understand the species first. You need to know the termite habits, their description and life cycle enough for you to come up with the right preventative and control measures.

How Termites Get Into Your House

One of the first important termite habits you need to understand is how they live. How do they get into your home in the first place? And why?

Termites, like all living creatures, have feeding habits. Simply put, termites eat. Their primary food is wood – usually decaying roots of trees, tree stumps, and almost any wood they can get to. A problem occurs when this termite habits lead them to the wood within human-made structures, such as your house.

Anywhere from three to four termite colonies could be living right under your home without your knowledge. Each colony can have up to 1,000,000 termites. If a single worker termite somehow finds the wood in your home, you’re in big trouble. Because one of the peculiar termite habits is to leave an invisible odor trail on the wood that they find so that other members of their colony could find it. Once this trial is established, your home just became feeding ground for termites.

These termite habits are commonly known as “foraging.” The incessant search for food by worker termites is what eventually leads them to the wood within your home.

Now, other termite habits you should watch out for is “swarming.” This commonly occurs in the spring or summer, usually after a rain. The term comes from “swarmers,” which are a type of adult, winged termites whose sole purpose is to reach a place suitable for the development of a new colony.

Swarmers do not cause damage per se the way worker termites and their endless excavations in search of wood do. But the termite habits of swarmers is to fly to several points of your home in order to find a suitable place for a colony. Once they find one, they immediately settle on it and begin to reproduce, thus creating another colony that can cause equal damage as the first.