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Welcome again to the Faith Pest Control podcast. Hi, I’m Mike Stewart, your host and we’re here today with pest expert Fred Talley of Faith Pest Control, Faith Pest Control services all the fine folks in Jasper, Georgia, Blue Ridge, Georgia Ellijay, Georgia and pretty much anywhere in the North Georgia mountains. If you have a pest problem, Fred Talley is the man to take care of those problems. And now here’s Fred Talley.
So, what does it mean? If I see winged termites, just for full disclosure, the material I’m about to discuss was gathered from publication 1241 of the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service. So the most common signs of termite activity that property owners are more than likely to encounter are number one, the sudden appearance of wing termites emerging from a structure. Number two, may be termite infested wood or wood products like a board or something laying on the ground or a lamb that’s laying on the ground. Or the presence of termites shelter tubes, excuse me on or within the building your home, especially if they’re in our own wood. All that being said, we’re going to focus our discussion today on the sudden emergence of the wing termites. So, the frequently the first sign of a termite into infestation is going to be the sudden appearance of wing termites are simply wings and that like bodies, and like the bodies inside the home. This is a phenomenon most commonly referred to as swarming. The wing termites are a combination of both male and female adults produced by mature and a focus on the word mature here mature termite colonies in an attempt to establish a new colony. Now, I emphasize the word mature to let you know that an immature or a young colony does not typically cast a swarm is typically a has to be a colony that has substantial resources, that they can take some of those resources and redistribute them if you will, to produce the the reproductive cast to the society. During a swarming event, hundreds if not 1000s, of wing Termites will emerge within a very short period of time. And that time duration can normally be measured in just minutes. If you find evidence of swarming termites and around your home, that tells you that there is a mature column the relatively close to your home. Now side conversation, if you will about termite biology, Eastern subterranean termite was predominantly what we deal with here in North Georgia are considered eusocial insects. Now you social insects at the colony level are insects that show an advanced level of social organization in which a single reproductive female produces the offspring and non reproductive into individuals cooperate and caring for the young. So the of course, the the there’s the Queen, which is the reproductive in in that society, and then they have workers which are which identify the food source for the colony, harvest it and retrieve it bring it back to the colony. And there are of course, the queen lays eggs, which are non fertile. And there is a cast in the society that takes care of the young and as well as a we commonly refer to him as soldiers, but I guess it’s a defense mechanism for the society but the soldier termites so the worker cast of the subterranean termite colony are the ones that do the damage to your home, because as I just said, their job is to locate, harvest and retrieve the food for the colony, the reproductive swarmers the swarm that you find, inside or around your home, do not have the ability to do any damage to your home. They’re simply trying to mate and create another new termite colony that can damage your home, or can produce the cast that can can damage your home. The wing termites that swarm are a cast of that colony level organization that are capable of reproduction. But if successful, will produce a new colony. They will not go back and rejoin the call and they were they were produced all of the newly emerged swarmers if they’re not successful in their efforts to mate and get to a suitable nesting place will die. Fortunately, wing termites and emerge indoors are themselves not a threat to the structure, because they’re unlikely to find a suitable location to establish a new home inside typical customer draw the environments not correct. These wing termites, they don’t bite you, they don’t sting you. And they can actually be easily removed by just simply vacuum in them. But their lifespan is typically measured in hours, not much more than a day if that normally, a termite swarm inside your home, or from a part of a structure represents the who’s telling you that they’re in the immediate proximity there is a mature termite colony, it can be inside a wall void in your home, which is not in in my experience, not typical, they can also have one in an attic, but what you have to have for that to occur especially for the Eastern subterranean is an an artificial moisture source, I say artificial, you can have a leaking roof and that can give them enough moisture. You know, if if a queen decides to build there to sustain the colony, the colony Other than that, what you’re typically going to find is you have a mature colony either under your house, and it can be under a basement slab. But typically, you know, maybe inside the crawlspace or next to the foundation wall somewhere a swarm that is seen outside of the home but but in the yard say it can be from firewood, stumps, molt, railroad ties, railroad trust railroad ties are notorious for termite activity. Railroad ties are coated, typically with creosote but they’re not pressure traded, so the creosote doesn’t penetrate to the middle. It’s like I said, it’s it’s very common to find subterranean termites in cross ties. Swarms that occur outdoors, are simply telling you that termites are living near the site of the flight, not not necessarily that your home is infested or even likely to be infested, that they may never even approach the home. But at the very least, I think it’s prudent as a home owner to have your home at a minimum visually inspected by a professional for termites if any type of storm has occurred inside or out in the immediate proximity outside your home. When swarming the wing, termites disperse by flying, but because they’re poor fliers, they only travel short distances. Termites will begin their mating ritual after losing their wings, which actually occurs soon after they land on the ground or any other surface. To begin the mating process. The new wingless female will emit a pheromone that attracts the male termies. After pairing with suitable partners, the termites will search out an area or location where they will mate and lay their eggs. The vast majority of the wing termites die within a day or so swarming. Evidence that I’ve read suggests that a pair of swarmers that are successful in mating and establishing a new new colony that it can take five to 10 years to achieve a colony population in excess of 10,000. Termite conditions that trigger swarming are a combination of successive days of warm temperatures, interspersed with periods of rain. Here in the north Georgia mountains. The typical scenario is an early spring, late February through early April, I would say if you get a pretty decent rain shower in the morning, and then the temperature gets up to about 70 degrees Fahrenheit before noon, and maintain 70 degrees for a few hours. You can almost count on as a as a pest control operator, you can almost count on getting a call from someone that has seen termite swarm and
like I said a minute ago we typically get our first calls the last of of February, and they’ll go on through March and sometimes we’ll get some the beginning of April. Now. The Eastern sub trainings that we have here can and do swarm throughout the year, but early Spring is the most active time that we encounter as a business. Now mature termite colony can swarm multiple times during swarming season if you will, over a period of days or months, but the secondary swarms as we refer to them or not, they don’t typically have the intensity of the near the initial swarm, you may not even realize that a secondary swarm has even occurred. It can be fairly common for termite colonies in the same area to swarm on the same day, which makes it difficult but best unless you actually witnessed the swarm to pinpoint the exact location of the exit hole where the swarm has emerged. Meaning you don’t you really don’t know where the mature colony is the winged reproductive termite here in North Georgia is typically back black. Other parts of the country and probably in South Georgia they can be brown or caramel color, but up here they’re typically back black. They can be distinguished from winged ants by three specific things. The presence of straight antenna termites have straight antenna. Ants have elbowed antennae not it’s a very easy thing for the non entomologist non insect oriented person to see the lack of a waist termites have. I believe they refer to it as a cephalothorax. They have a combined abdomen and thorax they have a head than a combined abdomen and thorax. An ant has three distinct body parts head, abdomen, and thorax, the and each body part has a distinct waist, if you will. And the other way is the presence of two pair of equal length wings. Termites have two pairs of wings for wings all together. And they’re all the same size. Ants have two pairs of wings for wings all together. But the each pair is a different length. On, on, on planning their exit strategy, termites do not have the ability to determine if they’re going to emerge inside of structure or into the great outdoors. So it’s not that uncommon early on, it’s not that common to actually witness a swarm. So it seems to be more common is for a homeowner to find shed wings and possibly somebody’s waiting den wingless bodies inside their home either on a windowsill or on the floor in front of a window or a door that has a window in it. It’s their natural instinct to go to the light. If you witnessed this form, or discover the evidence of swarming around your home, I think it’s extremely prudent to call your pest control provider or professional and request a termite inspection. That fake pest control, we offer a free consultation, and 100% make you happy money back guarantee. If you hire faith pest control, to get rid of your bug problem. And at the end of 30 days, you’re not 100% Happy, we’ll come back and retreat your home for free. And we’ll keep on trading it for free. Until you tell us you are happy. That still doesn’t make you happy. We’ll give you back every penny you spent on the original treatment. Plus, we’ll pay you an additional $25 for your time in trouble just for fooling with us. The bottom line is this. I want you to be happy with the service that we provide her you won’t pay us a penny period. If you feel like what I’ve said makes sense, please call fetes pest control today is 770-823-9202 and asked to speak to me Fred Talley. I’ll be more than happy to speak with you and answer any questions that you may have.
Well, Fred, that’s great information. Hey, if you’re in the north Georgia mountains in Jasper, Blue Ridge, Ellijay, Georgia, or anywhere in the north Georgia mountains and you have problems with bugs, just listen to this podcast over and over again and share it with your friends, so you’ll know what to do. And then of course, if you’re like me, and you just don’t want to deal with it, call Fred. Fred will take care of you and make sure you get the problem solved. We do this podcast as a community service for all the fine folks in Jasper, Georgia, Blue Ridge, Georgia, Ellijay, Georgia, and anywhere in the north Georgia mountains. You can get this podcast from our website, or you can get it from any of the fun podcast services like Apple, Google podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon. Even if you just ask your Alexa Hey, play the faith pest control podcast latest episode, it will start playing and you can listen right there on your speaker devices. So until next time, this is Mike Stewart for the faith pest control podcast.
