How A Termite Bait System Works To Protect Your Home From These Destructive Pests All Year Long

A termite bait system can be an effective way to deal with termites and protect your home. Whether you have a new home or live in an older home, it's important to protect your home against termites because the pests are destructive and they often work unseen. Here's an overview of how a termite bait system can help keep destructive termites out of your home.

Bait Stations Can Be Used Alone

Your pest control professional can help you decide on the right way to treat your property with bait stations. In some cases, liquids might be applied to the soil to kill termites. A bait system can be used along with liquids, but bait is also effective when used alone. If bait is used along with liquid treatments, the bait stations are placed in soil that hasn't been treated.

Bait Systems Kill Off The Colony

Bait treatments work more slowly than liquids and are a long-term approach to termite control. Bait stations don't kill the termites on contact; instead, a termite takes the bait and feeds it to other termites in the nest.

The bait contains insect growth regulators that keep young termites from developing. This kills off the new termites and causes the older reproductive termites to die because there are no young workers to tend to them and bring food.

Termites Respond To Bait Systems In Different Ways

You may not have immediate results with a termite bait system because a lot of factors influence when the termites find the bait and take it back to the colony. Weather conditions matter, since the termites might not forage close to your house when the soil is dried out. Termites might go deeper under the ground in very cold weather, so a bait system might be the most effective in the spring when weather is mild and the soil is damp from spring rains.

The bait doesn't attract termites. Instead, the termites wander into it when they are out foraging for food. Termites are always tunneling through the soil in search of old wood. A bait station has a tube with cellulose in it that termites eat and take back to the colony when they stumble into it.

Other termites follow, and soon the insect regulator is spread to many of the termites in the colony so it is slowly eliminated.

Termite Bait Stations Surround Your House

A bait station is driven in the ground so termites can find it as they tunnel through the soil. The top of the station is level with the ground so it isn't noticeable. Stations can even be dropped in holes that are drilled in a concrete patio or driveway. The stations are placed a few feet from your house and several feet apart in a circle around your home. The exterminator might also place stations near an old tree stump that's infested with termites.

A termite bait system works continuously all year long to treat your property for termites, and the exterminator will make scheduled visits to check the stations and put in more bait when needed. By maintaining a termite service contract, your home will always be protected from termites and you'll also have professional monitoring for signs of a sudden increase of termites in your yard.