When termites are munching on your home, you’ll try anything to
get rid of the tiny
destroyers. But a University of Georgia expert said newer isn’t
always better when it
comes to termite control.

“Termite control for the past 50 years has relied on the
application of 300 gallons of
insecticide solution around the home or structure,” said Brian
Forschler, a research
entomologist in the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.

“Because of the public’s increased environmental awareness and
desire to reduce
pesticide exposure,” he said, “the Environmental Protection
Agency has fast-tracked
the registration of an alternative control tactic, termite
baits.”

Three new termite bait products have been introduced for use by
pest-control operators.
But Forschler said there hasn’t been much research to see how
well they work.

“The EPA has taken a stance as stewards of the environment by
approving the
registration of environmentally friendly products, not as judges
of the product’s
effectiveness,” he said. “This is a case in which the buyer
should beware.”

Each year Georgians spend $56 million on termite control and
damage repair.

“Termite control involves protecting the single largest
investment in people’s lives,”
Forschler said. “These new baits are being sold at up to twice
the price of conventional
tactics. And it’s my view right now that they aren’t any
better.”

Forschler said people may pay much more in the long run for
choosing environmentally
friendly products.

“With termite control, you may have to wait three to five years
before you find out
you’ve wasted the money you’ve been spending on protection,” he
said. “By then, you
could have damage-repair costs in the thousands of dollars.”

Forschler is head of the UGA Household Structural Entomology
program at the
Georgia Experiment Station. Over the past five years he has been
studying more than
100 termite colonies. He has researched every control method
available, including the
new baits.

“Termite baits are a control tactic that shows promise. But they
are still in the
experimental stages,” he said. “I would only recommend a bait
product if it involved
special circumstances where conventional control cannot be
attempted. Around wells
and ponds, for instance.”

Baits can be deadly for ant colonies, in which workers carry
food back to the nests for
queens and babies. But termites aren’t ants.

“We’ve found that if termites have a central nesting place, it’s
very mobile,” Forschler
said. “And unlike ants, termites eat food that’s stationary,
like your house. They tunnel
through their food and eat what they’re standing on.”

Baits are designed to be appealing food to termites, which
return to their nests to share
the poison.

“We don’t think this happens in termite colonies,” he
said. “They find food, and they
all stay in that spot for a while to feed before moving to the
next food source.”

The baits are also based on an assumption that all termites are
the same.

“Textbooks say there are three species. But we’ve found evidence
of up to six species
here in Georgia,” Forschler said. “Just like with ants and
cockroaches, you have to
know the species before you determine what pest-control tactic
to use.”

Most of the termite baits also involve placing bait tubes into
the ground around the
infested structure. But some types of termites may prefer to
feed on surface, not
buried, wood. So the baits may not affect them.

“We’ve been field-testing termite baits for the past four
years,” Forschler said. “And
we will continue to do so as new products and improvements to
existing products are
introduced.”