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For the scientifically-minded, termites are eusocial animals of the Class Insecta; Subclass Pterygota; Infraclass Neoptera; Superorder Dictyoptera and Order Isoptera. They are not related to ants in any way, although some people refer to them as white ants. Having said, that termites do share certain characteristics with ants: firstly, work is apportioned along lines of gender and secondly, the leader of the nest is the termite queen.

A normal, established nest will contain between several hundred and several million insects of the following kinds: nymphs (semi-mature young), workers, soldiers, and reproductive individuals of both sexes and at least one egg-laying queen.

The reproductive caste, also referred to as the winged or alate caste, are usually the only termites with quite well-developed eyes although in some species there are occasionally soldiers with eyes too. Termites that are suitable to become alates will undergo an incomplete metamorphosis.

These changelings form a sub-caste in certain species of termites, functioning both as both workers, pseudergates, and also as latent replacement reproductive termite. These back-up alates can be brought on to replace dead primary reproductives and sometimes, in some species, replacement alates are brought on if a primary queen is killed.

In countries with distinct dry and rainy or monsoon seasons, like the tropics, the alates can be seen flying up from the earth in swarms that look like white streamers blowing in a breeze, immediately after a dry spell is broken by rain. These alates have three pairs of wings, but they are not good at flying.

They can be seen in their thousands circling street lights like moths, where people catch them to eat. Lightly fried in their own fat, without the wings, they are supposed to be, juicy, nutty and full of protein. Quite tasty, in fact. Frogs and toads sit under the street lamps impatiently awaiting a juicy meal too.

A queen is a former winged reproductive termite (of the Winged or Alate Caste. She will have flown away from her nest or nest of birth, dropped to the ground, shed her wings, mated and then crawled into the nearest hole in the ground (depending on her species) to establish a new colony or nest. In some species, the queen adds an further set of ovaries with each molt of her skin and can create 2,000 eggs a day.

A male that has flown and mated with the queen is known as a king. Sometimes, these kings stay close by the queen, but sometimes they do not. At the next molt, the king will be a little larger that he was at first. However, the king and the queen are not monogamous. Several males may mate with the queen and there may be a couple of queens within a nest.

As the queen molts and gets bigger with each molt, her body can become hundreds of times its original size, although her head and legs remain the same as normal. Obviously, at this size she can no longer walk as her legs do not extend to the ground and would not support her weight anyway. At this juncture, she is completely reliant on the assistance of worker termites, which she controls with pheromones.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with types 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 further information.

Termites are not ants, but they do resemble them in many ways. In fact, termites are not even remotely related to ants, they are more closely related to cockroaches. But, as I said, termites share many characteristics with ants. They live in colonies of many hundreds, thousands and even millions of members, they have a queen termite, they are controlled by something we humans do not understand, but which we refer to as ‘collective intelligence’, they are given this information by pheromones and they procreate by means of eggs. The queen can lay thousands of termite eggs a day and there can be more than one queen per nest.

An adult termite queen is capable of producing thousands of eggs a day. This is accomplished by having an enlarged abdomen. Sometimes the abdomen is a hundred times the size of a typical termite, although the head and the legs remain the same size as before.

This procedure produces quite a grotesque creature in relation to her relatives, although we obviously do not know how they look upon her. Being blind and in the gloom of a termite colony they cannot see her anyway. In some species, the queen will grow a new set of ovaries with each molting of her skin, which will increase her fruitfulness even more.

When a mature queen is at this phase in her life, she cannot walk, because when she sits on her belly her legs do not even touch the ground. If she has to get anywhere for whatever reason, the worker termites will either carry or roll her there. They also tend to her toiletry needs and feed her.

It can take dozens and dozens of workers to shift the queen when she has become an egg factory. If she is moved by the workers, they are rewarded with a liquid that the queen secretes from her behind. It is invigorating enough to revive the workers and encourage them to do the queen’s bidding next time. The queen communicates with her subjects through pheromones.

However we try to humanize this process in order to better comprehend it, it is practically impossible to think like a termite or any other insect that uses ‘collective intelligence’. We say ‘the queen’, but do termites think of her as ‘the boss’? Do they pity her for not being able to get out? Almost definitely not. She has a duty to do as do the other castes of termites and it is probable that not one caste feels itself to be higher or lower than another.

Calling the various castes of termites queens, kings, soldiers and workers is just a way of explaining things in simple human terms, but it probably bears little relevance to how termites interact within their own community.

An interesting aside to the topic of termite eggs is the winged termites, also called reproductive or alate termites. They can sit in the wings waiting for the right moment to fly off and set up a new colony or one of them can be ‘brought on’ to replace a queen that has died or been killed.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with how to get rid 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 further details.

Every home-owner has to look after their asset. This requires maintenance, regular and methodical maintenance. There are many threats to a structure, especially if there is a considerable amount of timber in it. Most properties have a lot of wooden areas. The rafters in the roof, the joists underneath the floors and the casing behind the plasterboard walls are all subject to attack by mould and insects.

The types of dangers your that house faces depends on the climate where you live. Wet rot and dry rot are pretty universal, as is attack by wasps, but the worst and fastest-acting danger is from termites and they only live in warmer climes.

If you live in a termite zone, then you really ought to watch out for these insects. If you want to delay your inspections, you can use termite deterrents and poisons to make your maintenance regimen a little easier.

This will involve spreading chemicals in most cases as they are more powerful and longer-lasting. These chemicals should be laid down or sprayed wherever termites are likely to commence an attack on the structure of your home.

This essentially means everywhere that there is untreated wood. There are three basic kinds of termites, the damp wood termites, the dry wood termites and the subterranean termites. The first two types may fly into your attic and establish a nest like a wasps’ nest; the subterranean termites will come up into the cellar via underground tunnels. Subterranean termites are by far the worst termites to have and they are usually the most tricky to detect.

If you live in a termite zone, then you really have to make quarterly inspections of your loft and basement and one of those checks should be towards the end of Spring, when termites, together with other insects spread their wings, quite literally, and seek to set up new nests.

A nest of termites can consist of between several hundred and several million termites, so it is best not to procrastinate. If you are loathe to do these inspections yourself or if you have to have written guarantees on your buildings because you buy and sell them often, it is better to get a professional pest controller in to do this for you.

There are two chief termite deterrents. There is the soil barrier to counteract the subterranean termites and contact insecticides to kill any swarming reproductive termites that may fly into your attic in order to establish a new nest.

If you are one of the modern thinkers, who tries hard not to use chemicals unless absolutely necessary, you will probably be disappointed in your quest to discourage termites. Unfortunately, there are no known effective natural termite deterrents, although there are plenty of chemical ones.

Another alternative, which is a half-way house, is to put termite bait at strategic spots around the base of your house. You can buy these bait boxes fairly cheaply or have a firm install them for you.

You have to check these termite bait boxes regularly. Once you see termite damage in the bait box, you put poison in there, which the worker termites will take back to their nest and poison it with.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on lots of subjects, but is at present concerned with how to get rid 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 further details.

If you have an issue with termites or even if you just that think that you may have, you will have to learn about the appearance of termites and how they behave, unless, of course, you decide to call an expert in, which is obviously the easiest course. A common description of termites is that they look like little white ants.

In spite of the fact that many termites are white, not all of them are. They are also not white ants and closer inspection of a termite will reveal that it only very superficially is similar to an ant in appearance.

In behavioural patterns, there is a closer resemblance to ants, as work is divided along gender lines, as in ants. Termites are also totally unrelated to ants. They are not even distant relatives. In fact, it has recently been realized that termites are more directly related to cockroaches.

Ants, bees and wasps belong to the Order of Hymenoptera, whereas termites have been reclassified into a Super Order called Dictyoptera. It has been proposed that termites be reclassified as Family Termitidae in the Order of Blattodea (where cockroaches are).

Termites do vaguely look like ants, it is true, but where they resemble ants a lot more is in their behaviour. Just like ants, the workers go out and bring back food for those members of the colony that do not often (or ever) leave the nest.

However, whereas ants will tunnel to get somewhere, as termites will as well, if travelling means being exposed to daylight or predators, ants will risk it, whereas termites will construct enclosed walk-ways or galleries to get there. This is also the job of the workers, who, just as with ants, are exclusively female and blind.

If there is a danger to the nest, then the soldiers are called out. They have exaggerated mandibles or jaws. Sometimes these mandibles are so large that the soldier termites cannot feed themselves and have to be fed by others. Then there are the winged termites which fly off to establish new nests.

At the top of the hierarchy is the queen. She usually has a very distended abdomen, which can be the size of a human fist, although all other body parts, head, legs etc, remain the usual size.

Workers and nest-bound termites are invariably white to cream in colour, because they never see the sun, whereas flying termites are brown. In Thailand they are a reddish brown with three pairs of large white wings. They be inclined to swarm during or just after rainfall and they leave cracks in the ground in bursts of fifty to a hundred.

They look like streamers. Thais eat these termites, called ‘maleng maw’ – they are fatty and full of protein. When they have mated, they fall to the ground, shed their wings. Then they search for the nearest crack in the soil to start the cycle all over again.

Termites do a huge amount of damage in warm countries, but they are still fascinating creatures and it is simply thought of as bad luck if your house is chosen by them, unless you take adequate steps to protect your property.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many 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 more details.

You may be astonished to realize just how much damage termites can do. But you have to bear in mind that while a single termite might be only eight millimetres (a third of an inch) in length, a colony or nest can hold between several hundred and several million termites.

Most of this number will be workers and their job is to go out and get enough food for all the inhabitants of the colony. In general, they search for cellulose material, but in practice that could be your house, especially if it is constructed primarily of wood. Not that they will not gnaw their way through other materials too.

Plastic, soft metals like lead, and even concrete are no actual barrier to thousands of determined termites. But they would rather wood. Some species prefer dry timber and others would rather damp or rotting timber. However, do not think that you will necessarily see termite damage at a glance. Often termites will eat their way into the end grain of a piece of wood and then work their way up through the centre of it.

This section of the timber is the newest growth and, presumably, the most succulent to a termite. Anyway, they will eat into the centre of, say, a floor joist, and make a walk-way or gallery through it to the next piece of timber. So you might not realize that you have termites until they have so undermined your floor that you drop into the basement one day.

This is why, if you live in an area where termites are known to be vigorous, you should have your house inspected or sprayed at least once a year. Just because you have not observed a termite or any termite damage, does not mean that you have not got termites. Not by a long chalk.

There are three main kinds of termite: the damp wood termite, the dry timber termite and the subterranean termite. As you can see, no matter what state the timber in your house is in, there is a termite that will eat it. By far the nastiest of these is the subterranean termite and by far the nastiest of those is the Formosan termite. Do not make the error of thinking that you are safe from the Formosan termite because you do not live in China. They are all over Asia and in the USA as well.

Subterranean termites, living underground, are obviously much harder to see. Not only that, they are either very clever or very shy, because they construct walk-ways or tubes of earth from the exits from their underground nests to the nearest bit of timber. This helps them go unobserved, unless you know what you are looking for, and then, when they have reached timber, they will burrow into the end grain and they are off, eating their way into the very structure of your house.

Within months all the timber support beams, purlins, rafters and joists could be hollow shells of wood. One serious gust of wind or a heavy snowfall and that could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many 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 further information.