Drywood Termites

Drywood termites live and feed entirely inside dry, sound wood, and the thing they leave behind is a small pile of hard pellets. They need no contact with the soil and no outside water source. That single fact separates them from every other termite a US homeowner is likely to meet, and it changes how the problem is found and how it is treated.

If you swept up a little heap of what looked like sand or coarse sawdust and it came back, this is very likely what you have. It is worth being sure, because the treatments that work on subterranean termites do nothing here.

The pellets are the giveaway

Drywood termites push their droppings out of the wood through tiny “kick-out” holes, and the droppings pile up below. UC IPM calls the pellets diagnostic, and the shape is the reason: they are six-sided. UF/IFAS puts it plainly — the pellets are hexagonal in cross section, and they come in cream, red, or black. The holes themselves are small, under about two millimetres across.

Pellets beside wet or rotting wood can belong to dampwood termites instead, and UC IPM says theirs lack the clear ridges.

A small pile of pellets is often mistaken for termite eggs, which stay inside the wood with the colony.

People almost always read the first pile as something else: sawdust, sand, coffee grounds, spilled dirt from a plant. The tell is that it reappears after you clear it, and that under a hand lens each grain is a hard, ridged, six-sided pellet rather than a soft flake. A powderpost beetle leaves a flour-fine dust instead, which is one of the more common mix-ups.

What each sign of drywood termites means

Sign	What it looks like	What it tells you	What it does not tell you
Fecal pellets	Hard grains in a small pile below a hole, scattered on a sill, or caught in spider webs	Texas A&M calls pellets of this size and shape unique to drywood termites	UC IPM says pellets alone cannot show whether the colony is active now, or how far it extends
Kick-out holes	Round holes under 2 mm across in trim, furniture or framing, as UC IPM describes them	The termites push their pellets out of the wood through these holes	How far the galleries run inside the wood
Swarmers and shed wings	Winged adults or loose wings on windowsills, in light fixtures and in cobwebs	UC IPM calls a daytime swarm in summer or fall the most common sighting	Where in the house the colony sits
Blistered or peeling surface wood or paint	Thin surface wood or paint that bubbles up or peels away	UF/IFAS lists it as an outside sign of a colony that stays inside the wood	How much wood behind the surface the termites have eaten

Not every small hole is a kick-out hole, and my key to other holes in wood separates them from beetle, bee and ant holes.

UF/IFAS warns that old pellets can drop out of wood that was infested years ago. So sweep the pile away and look again a few days later, as UC IPM suggests. New pellets in the same place point to a live colony. South Carolina’s inspection rule treats a repeated pile of pellets, or repeated swarmers indoors, as a reasonable sign of an active infestation.

The four signs confirm drywood termites. How far the colony runs decides between tenting or spot treatment. UC IPM says that judging how far an infestation extends takes experience and is best done by a professional.

Where they turn up

Drywood termites want warmth, so in the US they are a coastal and southern concern. UC IPM places them along the Pacific coast and into California’s Central Valley and southern deserts. UF/IFAS reports the heaviest populations of the West Indian drywood termite in older buildings across the southern half of Florida, in cities such as Miami, St. Petersburg and Tampa. Hawaii, the Gulf, and the warm coastal Southeast round out the range. If you are in a cold-winter inland state, a pile of pellets is more likely powderpost beetle than drywood termite.

Swarmers drop their wings soon after they land, and my page on termite wings covers what a pile of them on a sill means.

Southern California is the heart of that range, and my page on termite control in Los Angeles covers which licence a company there needs to tent a house.

What they do to a house, and how fast

They eat galleries through the interior of the wood, leaving a thin shell and those pellet chambers behind. The pace is slow. UC IPM describes drywood colonies as small, usually fewer than 1,000 individuals, taking years to mature. A subterranean colony can run to hundreds of thousands; a drywood colony is a different order of thing.

That timescale is the reassuring part and it is true: a drywood infestation is measured in years, not weeks. It is also why they are so often missed for a long time — a slow, hidden colony in an attic rafter or a window frame gives very little away between swarms.

Why the treatment is completely different

Here is the practical consequence of the no-soil biology: a soil barrier or a bait station, the standard tools against subterranean termites, is aimed at a colony in the ground. A drywood colony is not in the ground. It is inside the timber. Treating the soil around a drywood infestation is a common and expensive mistake.

The real options are localized treatment of the infested wood, or whole-structure fumigation when the colonies are widespread or hidden. UC IPM’s honest caveat about the localized route is that “one can never be sure all infestations have been treated” with a spot job, because a colony you did not find is a colony you did not treat. Whether that risk is acceptable depends entirely on how contained the problem is, which is a judgement for an inspection, not a photo. There is more on the methods under termite treatment.

Keeping them out

Prevention is harder here than with subterranean termites, because there is no soil link to break and the swarmers arrive by air, but a few things genuinely help. Bare, weathered wood is easier for a new pair to start in than sealed or painted wood, so keeping exterior wood finished closes the easiest doors. Screening attic and foundation vents keeps swarmers from flying straight into the framing. And because furniture and secondhand wood can carry a colony indoors, an unexplained pile of pellets under an old dresser is worth a second look before it spreads.

What people get wrong

The costly error is assuming all termites are subterranean and paying for a soil treatment that was never going to touch a drywood colony. If the evidence is pellets and pinholes rather than mud tubes, the soil is not where the problem lives.

The second is confusing drywood pellets with powderpost beetle frass. Beetle dust is fine and powdery, like flour; drywood pellets are hard, granular and six-sided. They point to different insects and different treatments, so it is worth getting the identification right. If what you actually have is mud tubes and no pellets, you are looking at subterranean termites instead, and everything about the treatment changes.

Sources

• Drywood Termites (Pest Notes 7440) — UC Statewide IPM Program, updated August 2014. Accessed 2026-08-02.
• West Indian Drywood Termite, Cryptotermes brevis (EENY-079) — University of Florida IFAS Extension, Featured Creatures. Accessed 2026-08-02.
• Termites: How to Identify and Control Them — US Environmental Protection Agency, last updated 2025-10-21. Accessed 2026-08-02.