Moisture in the Air

It appears we are moving into monsoon season as the air yeilds more humidity and we are blessed with a thunder shower here and there. I am originally from Minnesota and no stranger to humidity or rain, but when it rains here, unlike back in Minnesota, I am at my happiest. I'm sure a number of you also welcome the rain due to the vicious heat that plagues us through the summer, but my happiness also involves a pest related aspect. All that moisture welcomes to the surface our little buddies, the termites. Well, likely not your buddies, but I don't mind them (wink, wink). This installment will touch on termite biology, some of their habits, and conditions that promote their population.

A termite colony is divided between three castes; workers, soldiers, and reproductives. The role of the workers is to nourish the remainder of the colony, care for the young, groom, construct tunnels, colony repairs, and will help defend the nest. The workers are the caste that eat the wood or any other material that contains cellulose, such as cardboard and newspaper. They then digest the wood, and break it down into nutrients that the soldiers and reproductives feed on by way of secretions from either the mouth or anus.

The soldiers are a relatively small group within the colony, not nearly as numerous as the workers. They are called soldiers because their duty is to defend the colony. Visually, they are much different than the workers, having a large head and large mandibles. They depend on the workers for food.

The last caste are the reproductives. They continually reproduce and directly promote colony population. They also rely on the workers for food. A termite colony will have a King and Queen, both are called primary reproductives. However, if one or the other dies, secondary reproductives can take his/her place. Secondary reproductives are also responsible for the high rate of population growth in a colony. When environmental conditions are right, a colony will populate itself with alates. Alates are primary reproductives that leave the colony to establish a new one. These are what create termite swarms. Once they leave the existing colony, survival is not likely. I have read that maybe 1% of the tens of thousands in the air live to attempt a new colony.

Keep in mind that termites are very soft bodied. That means they are affected by temperature and exposure. If it's too hot or too cold, it will destroy the insect. That is why in the summer here termite activity is relatively low. When it becomes cooler, termites come to the surface to feed more readily. Higher temperatures also mean less moisture, and moisture is absolutely essential to termites. Since the valley is so dry, termites have to stay further under the soil during the toasty months to retain adequate moisture.

So keep a keen eye on your homes from September through the end of the year and be sure to look for the mud shelter tubes that subterranean termites create. Often times you'll find them on the stem wall of your home just beneath the lip of stucco. Other problem areas are any expansion joints in your garage. Also, look at your interior walls, behind paintings and any large furniture that you keep against the wall like an entertainment center or armoire.

I'll touch more on termites and indentification of activity in the next posting. And yes, I am well aware that I was late with this one...tsk, tsk. To make up for it, I'll try to squeeze one in even before this month is over. Thanks for stopping by, I'll speak with you soon.

Yours in Small Business

Nathan

New Avenues

In an effort to reach out in a more personal fashion to our customers, I have decided a regular posting written by myself would be a good way to go. It gives me an opportunity to address pest issues in a more casual tone and hopefully becomes an exciting forum for you to visit from time to time. Well, "exciting" might be a stretch, let's go with "enjoyable." You can expect to read facts that will no doubt prove facinating, though you may never actually find an opportunity to fluidly include them in everyday conversation. However, that shouldn't stop you from trying. For example, one in every four species of animal on this planet is a beetle, given there are an estimated 400,000 species of beetles. Okay, now run and throw that into your next conversation at dinner. And if you're extremely bold, try tossing it into conversation on a first date.

You can expect to see a new post on a monthly basis here at Pest Talk. This post is just the first of many that I invite you to allocate a bit of your time to reading. I'll update this post at the beginning of each month. The post you are reading now is merely an introduction and, quite frankly, me learning my way around the infrastructure of the blog. A test run, if you will. I'd imagine the following posts will likely include pictures, tables, graphs, and so on as I become more comfortable with this social networking technology. Thank you for swinging in and I look forward to writing for you again soon. Let's plan on September 1st for a new posting.

Yours in Small Business,

Nathan