A termite's life cycle starts when a queen lays an egg. This egg develops for 30 days before hatching and moving through a larval stage (nymph). With time, nymphs mature into adult termites in one of several castes: workers, soldiers, or reproductives (alates).
Alates develop wings for swarming to find new colony locations, perpetuating the life cycle. Understanding these patterns helps you know when and how termites can infest your property.
Termites move through incomplete metamorphosis with several phases before reaching adulthood:
85-98% of Colony
Expand colony, care for eggs/nymphs, feed the colony. Use pheromones to find food. Subterranean workers build mud tubes. Drywood workers chew through wood. Sterile (either gender).
Colony Protectors
Extra-large heads with large mandibles to fight predators like ants. Cannot feed themselves due to mandible size. Workers must provide cellulose. Also sterile.
Alates (Swarmers)
All fertile termites including queen and king. Winged for nuptial flight to create new colonies. Develop pigmentation and eyes for light exposure.
Once a swarm identifies a new location, one female and male emerge as queen and king. They remain inside the nest for life, producing millions of eggs. The queen's body distends to several times her original size, making her mostly immobile. The king is smaller, stays by the queen's side, and helps determine caste development.
Get an inspection before the colony matures and causes major damage.
Call (866) 326-2847The life cycle begins with the nuptial flight where a swarm leaves to find a new colony location. After colony creation, one pair emerges as king and queen. Initially the queen produces only a handful of termites daily, but eventually reaches up to 1,000 eggs per day.
Without swarming, new colonies would never occur. This happens when a colony runs out of food or needs room for growth. The king and queen signal nymphs to develop into alates via pheromones. These nymphs develop wing buds, functional eyes, and darkened/hardened exoskeletons for sunlight exposure. When reproductives are ready in numbers, they take off on their nuptial flight.
Queens live 10-12 years. Colonies develop slower, taking up to 5 years to reach stable mature state.
Queens live 15-25 years. Colonies expand much faster, reaching maturity at around 2 years.
Once mature, colonies can contain over a million termites. Time to maturity depends on climate and species:
Full maturity in 6-7 years. Faster expansion rate.
Significantly longer to reach maturity than subterranean species.
Note: Colonies with enough resources have been known to exist for over 100 years. However, these exist where structural damage is not monitored, otherwise they would have been treated and controlled.
If you have noticed any signs of termites at any stage of their life cycle, call EcoGuard Pest Management to schedule a termite inspection right away. The amount of damage that can be done by a mature colony is significant.
The length depends on which caste. Workers and soldiers live 1-2 years while reproductives can live up to 4 years. Queen termites can live 25 years or more in optimal conditions.
Depending on species, a full-blown infestation can take 3-8 years. At this point the colony will be big enough to cause significant structural damage.
For drywood termites, fumigation can terminate 100% of a colony within a few days. Subterranean termites require baiting or soil saturation to cause colony collapse since they live underground.
All termites progress from eggs to nymphs to adult termites in one of 3 castes. Depending on colony needs, mature termites develop into workers, soldiers, or reproductives.
