Knowledge base

Subterranean termites nest in soil and reach wood through mud tubes. What each caste looks like, which US species live where, and how they are treated.

The termites that leave little piles of hard six-sided pellets. They live entirely inside dry wood, need no soil contact, and build up slowly over years.

A subterranean termite with colonies in the millions and long-range foraging. That size is why spot-treating where you found them so often fails.

Dampwood termites live in wood that stays wet, mostly on the Pacific Coast and in South Florida. How to spot them, and why fixing the leak controls them.

White ants are termites, not ants. The name is an old common term still standard in Australia, and the insects people find are almost always worker termites.

Termite holes are the kick-out holes drywood termites make to push pellets out of the wood: round, under 2 mm across, with hard pellets piled or scattered below.

The termites that infest US houses do not build mounds. A subterranean colony nests in the soil, usually outside or under the house, and a drywood colony lives inside the wood it eats, so the nest is…

Flying termites are swarmers, the winged adult kings and queens a mature colony releases once a year to mate and establish new colonies.

Termite damage is wood eaten out from the inside, hollowed along or across the grain and lined with soil or pellets. By the time it shows on the outer surface, the wood behind it is already thin.

Termite larvae, or baby termites, look like tiny, pale, soft-bodied termites with six legs and straight antennae. They stay inside the nest or wood galleries, so a white grub or maggot you find in…

Do termites bite? Almost never. Soldier termites have jaws strong enough to pinch a finger if you pick them up, but they carry no venom and are not known to spread disease to people.

A termite queen is the egg-layer that founds a colony with a king after a swarm flight, staying sealed in soil or wood for life.

Most termites are small, soft, pale, wingless workers with straight antennae and no pinched waist; the ones people actually see are the dark winged swarmers, and soldiers look like workers with a…

Termite swarm season is not a single calendar event. Most subterranean termites swarm in spring on warm afternoons after rain, while other species fly in winter, at dusk, or during summer and fall…

Termite eggs are tiny, translucent white, oval objects laid by the queen deep inside the nest and tended constantly by workers.

Termite wings are shed by winged reproductives, called swarmers, which fly from a mature colony, drop their wings, and attempt to start a new one.

A termite mud tube, or shelter tube, is a covered runway of hardened earth that subterranean termites build so they can travel between the soil they live in and the wood they are eating.

A sign of termites is a physical trace the insects left behind, not the insects themselves. Every sign below is worth acting on, and the two you are most likely to find, a mud tube and a pile of…

A small pile of wood debris on your floor is almost never sawdust. It is insect droppings, excavation waste, or beetle powder, and of the four things that leave a pile like that, drywood termite…

Opening a wall during a remodel or pulling back trim often reveals damaged timber with no insect anywhere in it. What sits inside the galleries names the insect, and how smooth the walls are does not…

Termites are insects that eat wood for the cellulose in it; carpenter ants are large ants that do not eat wood at all, but tunnel into it to make a nest and dump the shavings back out.

A swarmer is a winged termite or ant that left its colony to breed, and a pile of them on a windowsill is what most people find first.

Subterranean termites nest in the soil and reach your wood through mud tubes; drywood termites live entirely inside dry wood and touch no soil at all.