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Good afternoon. And thank you for joining me again, this is Ben Sell with Ben’s pest control. And this is another episode of The Ben’s Pest Control podcast. And boy, it is early summer now, and we are we are coming into full blown swarm season. Now a lot of times we’re in swarm season possibly as early as April. And we did see some swarms earlier this year. But a few weeks back, the rain started, we saw some rain, we had been in a huge drought and the rain came in. And while that seems to have really kicked it off, and in my 27 years experience, rain is usually one of those factors that really does finally get the swarm season to just say, We’ve arrived, we’re here ready or not. Here we go. We are we are full game on for bugs. Now, for a lot of people are wondering, Well, what is this gentleman talking about swarm season. So if you’re not familiar here in Florida and other tropical areas, we have termites and we have ants and both of those insects go through reproductive cycles where they create winged reproductives. And those winged reproductives gets sent out of the colony and they fly off or sometimes they’re carried off by the wind. And that is how these insects actually move from one area to another area. Now the mortality rate on the swarms is extremely high, sometimes 99% or greater of the ants and the termites die off. But they they have extremely large numbers so they can counteract that mortality rate and hopefully create a new colony in the area where they land and start life again. And that is how in essence these creatures have spread. In some cases. Termites and ants that have come into ports down in Miami, over time has spread through the state that way, and they’ve been carried some insects all through the South. Now, some species of termites some species of ants are just everywhere, and they spread through that swarming process. Now, in my experience, your most important swarm is going to be any kind of swarm of termites. Obviously, termites can wreak havoc on our homes, they cause a lot of damage. And they are a serious, serious threat to you. Now, the termites, what I will tell you is we have three main species we have subterranean, we have dry wood and we have dampwood termites. Now damp wood are normally crazy big swarmers a lot of times they can be almost an inch with their wings and damp wood. They thrive in in usually marshes and swamps any place where there’s wet wood that they can invest. I have not in 27 years that I know of experience a colony of dampwood termites in a house there would have had them in a leak that was absolutely terrible. And I have not seen that dry wood termites here on the Treasure Coast especially in downtown Stewart the areas around the water and he placed near the river Fort Pierce some of your older homes. dry wood termites are extremely prevalent. And they are all going crazy through that area. Actually a few years back in Indian River states, dry wood termites were were crazy. I got a call saying it was like a plague out there of the dry wood termites and and they’re right on a Preserve. So that preserve could have had a swarm, the wind was blowing out of the East and just blowing them through the Indian River states area. And then, of course, the subterranean termites, which are the underground termites that come up. Those are the ones that are the most damaging. They are also in full blown season right now we’ve been getting calls for formosan subterranean termites regular subterranean termites they are in season. Now.
One of the things I would tell you that’s very important is that there is a difference between Ant and termite swarmers normally, most people say you can tell the difference by the presence of a pinched waist. A pinch waste is going to be an answer warmer. A non pinch waste is a termites warmer. Now there’s another way if you’re brave enough to look very close. ants have three segmented bodies where the termites usually have to. So that is one of the ways I find that it’s easiest. Now in the termite world when it comes to the species of swarmer. For me, I believe the proper way to identify them is based on their wings, we usually take their wings Back to our office, we look on our microscope. And they can, they can have their difference told by the veins in the wings. subterranean termites have two main veins along the edge of their wings were dry would have three. When we find formosan subterranean termites, they usually have little hairs on their wings. Now, the average person doesn’t have a microscope to look at it. So I usually tell people if you get a swarm, please call your pest control guy and have them come out and take a look to tell you what they think. Now as far as the ants go, we are also in ants season we’ve had numerous customers call us up with carpenter ants swarming. Now carpenter ants are the biggest species that swarms they can be an inch or bigger. They’re usually deaf, three part bodies that are pretty easy to tell based on their size. And we’ve had swarms of those just going crazy in areas. And again, it’s just important that hopefully you have somebody you can call and have them come out and identify what’s going on. One of the things I will say is that a lot of times the swarmers are drawn to lights. So if you control the lights around the outside of your house, you can somewhat control if they’re coming to your house or drawn to your house. And so as as it is right now, if you don’t have to keep your outside lights on, you’re probably better off not. But you also have to be careful because from a security standpoint, I can’t tell you what to do. But I can tell you from a bug standpoint, when those lights are left on at night, and the ant swarm or the termite swarm, they seem to see them and go right at them and go, this is where I want to be and, and they are drawn and we’ll come by the 1000s and some ant species, some termite species, some species that swarm, specifically, the formosan can have as many as 70,000 swarmers come out of a colony, that is a lot of insects with wings flying around outside. And it gets it gets pretty crazy. And I would tell you that when you go to ants, most ant species that I can think of to swarm, fire ants, carpenter ants, big headed ants, they all have swarmer serves a few species of smaller ants that I can’t say I’ve ever seen swarm. But considering that’s how most of them seem to spread, I would assume that in one nature or another that that’s how most of the ant species get from one area to another. And then when they swarm when the ones who do survive, find a mate and get into a suitable environment, whether it’s termites with dry wood, termites, getting back into wood, subterranean termites getting back into ground and getting into trees or, or areas that can sustain life. If a male and a female can partner up and and they can get into the suitable area. All sudden, boom, now you’ve got a new colony of whatever insect, you’re probably hoping to avoid starting on your property in your trees around your house. They are going crazy. So if you’re wondering what you’re seeing flying around, there’s a good chance at some kind of swarmer if you have any questions, please feel free to give our office a call at 772-878-1972 or check out our website at www dot Benz pest stop is for free inspection, free estimate and we’ll be happy to come out and take a look and see what you got going on and advise you on what the best steps to take are. And hopefully you don’t have to worry about it. But if you do, we are here for you. Hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you and have a great day.
