Warm weather in Mississippi has arrived resulting in the swarming of pesky and damaging termites. Officials say the structure-destroying insects will continue to swarm across the state over the next few months.
John Riggins, professor of forest entomology in the Mississippi State University (MSU) Department of Agricultural Science and Plant Protection, said termites swarm to produce new colonies when the weather warms up, often after a rain.
“Eastern subterranean termite swarmers are black with long, straight, bead-like antennae. Their most distinctive feature is two sets of clear white wings that are much longer than their body, but both sets of wings are equal in length,” Riggins said. “These wings drop off after the swarmers mate, so in some instances, the only sign of these swarmers is large amounts of light-colored wings in areas such as windowsills.”
Eastern subterranean termites swarm during daytime hours. This normally happens in the spring, but swarm season can begin as early as late January or February along the Gulf Coast and extend into May and potentially early June in north Mississippi.
Santos Portugal, urban entomologist with the MSU Extension Service, said if these termites are found indoors dead or alive, it’s time to bring in the professionals.
“Finding eastern subterranean termite swarmers inside a building is a pretty good sign the building has an active termite infestation and needs to be professionally inspected and treated by a licensed professional pest management company,” said Portugal. “It takes several years for a colony of eastern subterranean termites to grow large enough to produce swarmers. This means that if you have hundreds of these termite swarmers in the building, there are probably tens of thousands of termite workers eating the wood in that building.”
Treatment costs vary with the size of the building, its type of construction and the treatment used. Treating an average-size house may cost around $1,200 to $1,750, but this is just an estimate for Mississippi, and several variables can move the final cost higher or lower by several hundred dollars.
With termites, the best prevention is a good offense. Officials said you should maintain an annual termite contract with a reputable pest control company and make sure to keep up with annual treatments. These preventive treatments will help keep termites from infesting homes or buildings.
