Homeowners often find termites while gardening. This happens while pulling weeds, turning the soil or when digging to plant seedlings.
The termite workers you see will have white heads and their abdomens are darker because you can see through the thin skin to the gut contents. Soldiers will have a darker, brown head.
The easily discernible difference between termites and ants is that ants have elbowed antennae compared to a ‘string of beads’ for termites and, ants have a narrow waste so they appear to be in three sections (head, thorax and abdomen) compared to termites in what appears to be just two sections.
If you find termites, it is confirmation they are a threat.
Installing outdoor termite monitors in several places has the high probability of intercepting termites foraging for new food sources.
Putting termite bait pouches in the mulch is usually a waste of time. The termite bait pouch is most effective when fixed to infested timbers or placed in or on Monitors.
If you’ve found termites in mulch or other places where you can’t be confident of getting them to go directly into the termite bait, you should go to the details of monitoring for termites.
