Baiting termites: the facts

Termite baiting works.

Termite workers chew off wood and take it back to the central nest where the queen and all the young nymphs are waiting to be fed. It’s what they do.

All day. Every day.

It is their constant and continuing job — leave the warm and humid nest, head for where the cellulose is, engorge themselves, then before they dehydrate in a hot, dry roof or wall or wherever, return to the nest to regurgitate this food for their dependents.

‘Dependents’ means not only the royals and the nymphs but the soldiers and the ‘teenagers’, the reproductives that are hanging around the nest in gangs just waiting for someone to shout “Geronimo!” before they launch into the summer evening to begin the search for a new nest.

By adding something to what the workers are harvesting, those dependable stalwarts will feed that something to the rest of the nest. Scientists found and synthesised a chemical to add to an attractive cellulose powder; it has no effect on humans, our pets, birds or wildlife but it stops termite nymphs from going through their moulting process. If they don’t moult, they die. Thousands of them dying causes fungus and decomposition gases to make the nest uninhabitable. Gasp! Gasp!

You can buy termite bait

Homeowners can now buy this same chemical, as used by most of the professional pest technicians, add some water to it and make it available to the termites industriously harvesting food. It is called Colony Killer Termite Bait  — a good description.

 The Termite Trap System & Colony Killer Termite Bait

The principle is simple. But, you can only start the process if you have found live termites happily eating away, undisturbed in their wooden ‘caves’.

No live termites?

Don’t even start — it would be a waste of bait.

Baiting termites: How you do it 

If you have a purpose built termite monitor (such as the TermiteTrap) which termites have discovered, you can simply and quickly open it, slosh in the ‘porridge’-like bait and close it so they can carry on in undisturbed bliss. Being a damp powder, the bait is much easier to swallow than having to first chew off solid wood.
	Once added the termites eat the termite bait and take it back to their nest.

The energy cost of getting a tummy full is much lower, so the workers will save their energy and be on their way back to warmth and humidity sooner. Who could blame them?

If you find live termites in a timber structure, a firewood heap, a log or whatever, and if you do not move it or explore to see how far the termite damage has extended, you can add bait to the outside of the wood so the workers can come out and get it. Here’s how:

With a pocket knife or small screwdriver, prise gently, almost surgically, into anywhere termite ‘mud’ fills up gaps or splits until you break through into the working cavity. Or, if the wood is hollowed out you may be able to insert the blade into the thin veneer of protecting wood and twist it gently so you can see inside.

If termites are active the soldiers will at last earn their keep and shove their heads into the hole to prevent the entry of ants.(they always think: “Ants!!!”) while the workers bring up regurgitated food to reseal the hole. (If no termites appear, wait an hour or come back tomorrow to see if they’ve resealed the hole. A repaired hole means termites are still in residence so you can reopen the hole and continue the baiting process).

Remember the principle: termites working undisturbed must be able to get to the bait, harvest it and be on their way home in complete security.
 

By attaching an aluminium foil pouch of bait to the outside of the timber, the workers can get out into it and back inside the wood without risk, loss of humidity or exposure to light.
	There are other ways but cooking foil and duct tape can make an effective blister or cache in most situations.

Why baiting termites is the most reliable way to kill their colonies

You can easily kill any termite. An aerosol will do the job, or tear apart its controlled atmosphere and it will dry out and die. Kill a few thousand workers and soldiers in your window frame or skirting board and the workers back at the first defendable place closer to the nest will just seal off the access ‘pass’ and all those beyond that point will have to take their chances with those damned “Ants!!!” or the slower death by desiccation.

How futile this is, can be explained by the simple fact that a queen in her prime can be laying thousands of eggs every day!

The goal is to kill the nest. The only sure way to find the nest is to let the workers get back to it — with a tummy full of something that will kill those in the nest — because they are the only ones that know the way!

There are transferrable chemicals such as Termidor with its active ingredient, fipronil. This works a different scenario. The chemical, applied at a low concentration so that it doesn’t kill immediately can get a worker all the way back before it dies. When it does, it cannot go to waste so other workers do whatever they need to the deceased and they, in turn, become affected. Eventually the queen gets a lethal dose and she dies. No more eggs are laid, nymphs are also poisoned, the fungus from the humidity and the decomposition gases poison the nest ‘air conditioning‘ — Finito! Goodnight!

If you can feed bait to an active termite-riddled timber for a month or so, guess where the bait is going? Yep, to the nest. Provided you haven’t dug or weeded in the garden or in some other way broken the connecting tunnel back to the nest, when the feeding stops, it’s because the nest is dead.

Job done.

That nest is dead forever.

Congratulations!

Baiting termites? The most reliable way to kill a termite colony invading your home.