Finding Them and Killing Them: Termite Diagnosis and the Gram of Active Ingredient That Ends a Colony

1. Introduction: the assumption worth checking

Ask anyone in the Manitoba trade about termites and the answer is that we do not have them. It is a reasonable assumption about a subtropical-origin insect in a city that reaches forty below.

It is also contradicted by the published record.

1.1 What this paper is, and what it is not

This journal sets out the Winnipeg record and the northern-edge surveillance question in a separate article. Sections 2 to 7 here give the background needed to justify taking the subject seriously in this province, and no more.

What this paper is about is the practical half: how the insect is distinguished from the two local organisms that produce similar damage, and what the control literature actually says about treating it. The comparison between repellent and non-repellent chemistry in §17b, and the quantities involved in baiting in §17c, are the parts we think are least known outside the regions where this is routine work.

2. The Canadian record

The sequence, which is a sequence of introductions rather than a range expansion.

The species was recorded in the province in 1929. Then, in 1938, termites were found in a warehouse in the city of Toronto, apparently introduced by ship from the United States around 1935. By the time of writing, 29 towns in the province of Ontario reported ongoing termite problems.¹

In Canada, active infestations of the eastern subterranean termite are present in south western Ontario, and the western subterranean termite is reported on Vancouver Island, on the Sunshine Coast north of Vancouver, and in the city of Vancouver.²

2.1 The mechanism of arrival

A warehouse, a ship, and a cargo. This is not an insect walking north; it is an insect being carried, and then persisting where it was put.

That distinction matters because it means climate limits the establishment rather than the arrival. Anywhere goods arrive, the insect can arrive.

2.2 The general Canadian position

Termites are often thought to infest only tropical or temperate areas, but in fact they thrive in most parts of southern Canada, especially along the coasts, and are commonly found in large cities.³

3. The cost that followed

What one Canadian city was spending.

In Toronto alone, the 1988 costs of termiticide treatments and of breaking wood-soil contact totaled about 0.9 million United States dollars.¹

3.1 The composition of that figure

It combines chemical treatment with breaking wood-soil contact, which is a carpentry measure rather than a chemical one.¹

That pairing recurs through this journal. Wood in contact with soil is the same defect the decay fungi article identified and the same one the carpenter ant literature names, and here it appears as a line item in a municipal pest budget for a third organism.

It is also the first appearance in this paper of the principle §20 ends on: the durable part of termite control is a building alteration, and the chemistry buys time for it rather than replacing it.

4. The Winnipeg discovery

The local case, as recorded in two independent sources.

An infestation of eastern subterranean termite appeared in a neighbourhood of Winnipeg in 1987.² The contemporary entomological literature described it as a thriving subterranean termite infestation.¹

4.1 And it did not end there

The next documented point is nearly three decades later. In August 2015, termites were confirmed in at least one Winnipeg home, reported as the first such finding in almost a decade.¹⁵

That phrasing carries two things. A 2015 confirmation, and an implied earlier finding around 2005 or 2006 that the report treats as the previous one. Neither we nor, apparently, the reporting establishes a continuous record between 1987 and now.

4.2 The word thriving

Not surviving, not persisting marginally, not a single detection. The account in the entomological literature characterises the population as thriving, in a city with this winter.

That is the word the finding turns on, and we have quoted it rather than paraphrasing for that reason.

5. How long they had been there

The detail with the most practical significance.

City officials believe the termites were accidentally introduced at least 5 to 10 years prior to discovery.²

5.1 What that interval represents

Five to ten Manitoba winters between arrival and anyone noticing. A population established, feeding and expanding for the better part of a decade in a city whose pest control trade was not looking for it.

That is the single most important sentence in this article for a practitioner, and §18 develops why.

5.2 The estimate's status

It is a belief attributed to city officials rather than a dated introduction record.² Back-calculating an introduction date from colony size and damage extent is an inference, and we treat it as an informed estimate rather than a measurement.

6. What the municipality did

The response.

The City of Winnipeg treated the properties.²

6.1 What we could not establish

What the treatment consisted of, whether it succeeded, and whether the population persists. The source records the fact of treatment and our copy is truncated at that point.² Section 21 returns to this.

7. Why the find mattered scientifically

How the contemporary literature framed it.

The Winnipeg infestation was cited as demonstrating the potential for further northern expansion and survival of termites in cold habitats.¹

7.1 The claim being made

Not that termites had spread to Winnipeg naturally, but that once introduced they could persist there. Those are different claims and the second is the one a building owner should care about.

A climate that prevents natural spread does not necessarily prevent establishment, because the insect is not living in the climate. It is living in a heated building and in soil beneath it.

8. Northern colonies are different

A finding with direct control implications.

Research indicates that northern R. flavipes colonies differ in a number of aspects from their southern relatives. These regional differences among subterranean termite populations have implications for termite control efforts.¹

8.1 Why this should be expected

A population at the edge of a range experiences selection its core does not. Colony structure, foraging behaviour, seasonal timing and cold tolerance are all candidates for divergence.

We do not have the specifics of what differs; the source states that differences exist and that they matter for control without our copy enumerating them.¹

8.2 The practical caution

Control guidance written for the southern United States describes a population that behaves differently from a northern one. This journal made the same argument about substrate, about formulation and about resistance profiles: guidance carries assumptions about the population it was developed against.

9. The organism

What is actually being discussed.

Reticulitermes flavipes, the eastern subterranean termite, is the most common termite found in North America and these termites are the most economically important wood destroying insects in the United States. The species is the most widely distributed Reticulitermes species, is believed to originate in the southeastern United States, and is considered exotic or invasive elsewhere.⁴

9.1 The taxonomic detail worth knowing

Termites sit in the order Blattodea.⁴ They are, in the modern classification, social cockroaches.

That is not a curiosity. This journal has written at length about cockroach biology, and the shared ancestry explains features the two groups have in common, including the gut symbioses that let them digest material other insects cannot.

10. What they eat

The feeding range, which is wider than structural timber.

They feed on cellulose material such as the structural wood in buildings, wooden fixtures, paper, books, and cotton.⁴

10.1 The consequence for where damage appears

A stored archive, a stack of cardboard against a basement wall and a bale of insulation backing are all food. Damage confined to structural members is the expected pattern and not the only one.

It also means a building can be feeding a colony through material the owner does not think of as part of the building.

11. Colony size

The numbers, which are the reason this insect has the reputation it does.

A mature colony can range from 20,000 workers to as high as 5 million workers.⁴ Subterranean termites spend most of their lives underground, in colonies with up to 2 million members depending on species.³

11.1 The range is the point

Two orders of magnitude between the lower and upper figures means colony size tells you almost nothing without knowing where in the range a particular case sits.

We would expect a northern population at a climatic edge to sit at the low end, and we flag that as an expectation rather than a finding.

12. The reproductive output

What sustains those numbers.

The primary queen of the colony lays 5,000 to 10,000 eggs per year to add to this total.⁴

12.1 Reading that against the colony figures

Five to ten thousand eggs a year is a large absolute number and a small fraction of a colony of millions. This is not an insect that rebuilds quickly from a remnant in the way the rodent and cockroach articles described.

It is an insect that accumulates slowly over years, which is consistent with a five to ten year interval between introduction and a colony large enough to notice.

13. The caste structure

Who is in the colony.

Termite colonies contain three main social castes: workers, soldiers, and reproductives, each differing slightly in appearance.⁵

13.1 Why the caste matters for identification

What a homeowner finds is almost always a swarming reproductive, because that is the caste that leaves the colony and appears in the open.

Workers and soldiers stay inside the wood and the soil. A property can hold a substantial colony and present nothing visible except at swarming, which is a detection problem this journal has described for several concealed-stage pests.

14. Telling the two groups apart

The distinction that determines the response.

The most common pest species in Canada are the eastern subterranean termite, the western subterranean termite, and the Pacific dampwood termite. Subterranean species are responsible for the bulk of damage inflicted on homes, while dampwood species target moist and rotting wood. Subterranean termites produce smaller workers of approximately 6 mm, while dampwood termite workers measure about 20 mm.⁵

14.1 A usable field distinction

A threefold difference in worker length is visible without magnification, which makes this one of the few identifications in this journal that a non-specialist can make reliably.

It matters because §15 shows the two groups indicate different building problems.

15. The dampwood signal

What finding the other group would mean.

The presence of dampwood termites usually indicates an ongoing moisture problem.⁵

15.1 The familiar pattern

An organism whose presence is diagnostic of a building defect rather than being the defect itself. That is precisely the argument this journal made about carpenter ants and wood decay fungi, arriving here through a third taxon.

The dampwood group is a western Canadian problem rather than a prairie one, so this is context rather than a local concern.⁵

16. Why a building makes this possible

The mechanism behind §7, stated as our own reasoning rather than as a sourced finding.

Subterranean termites live underground and in the wood they feed on. Neither of those is exposed to winter air in a heated building with a basement.

16.1 The three shelters

Soil below frost depth holds a temperature far above the air. A heated building holds a temperature far above the soil. And the interface between them, which is where a subterranean termite would enter a structure, is the warmest soil on the site.

An insect that never leaves those three environments is not experiencing a Manitoba winter in any meaningful sense.

16.2 The status of this argument

It is ours. The sources record that the population survived and was cited as evidence of survival in cold habitats;¹ they do not, in what we read, explain the mechanism. We offer the explanation as plausible and unverified.

17. The relatives nearby

A complication worth noting.

Another species in the same genus, Reticulitermes tibialis, tends to live in drier habitats, has a wider distribution in North America than other members of its genus, and can be distinguished from similar species by gene sequencing.⁶

17.1 Why that matters

A drier-habitat species with a wide North American distribution is a different biogeographic proposition from a southeastern introduction, and the Western Canada review mentions a southern Alberta location in its distribution discussion.²

That species can be distinguished only by sequencing⁶ means field identification to species is not available, which is a caution against confident statements about which termite any particular prairie record concerns.

17.2 One colony per building

A useful finding from genetic work: in a study of twelve infested residences across three states, microsatellite markers indicated that only one R. flavipes colony was infesting each structure.¹¹

That makes elimination a coherent objective rather than an endless one. A building with a single colony can be cleared; a building being colonised repeatedly from many directions cannot.

It is also the sharpest contrast in this journal between two structural pests. Bed bugs in multi-unit housing are a reinfestation problem with no defensible boundary, which is why the economics article concluded that outcome pricing there is a contract to lose money. A single-colony termite infestation has a boundary, and elimination is therefore a claim somebody could actually stand behind.

17b. What would actually be done

Having spent this paper on whether termites occur here, it is worth setting out what the treatment literature says, because it is unexpectedly close to arguments this journal has made about other taxa.

17b.1 The chemistry that was used first

Insecticides used for ground treatments during the 1930s to 1950s included sodium arsenite, trichlorobenzene, DDT, pentachlorophenol, creosote and ethylene dibromide.¹³

That list is its own argument for why the field moved on. Arsenic, an organochlorine, a wood preservative later heavily restricted, and a fumigant later withdrawn, all applied to the soil around occupied houses.

17b.2 The repellent and non-repellent split

Commonly used repellent termiticides are pyrethroids including permethrin, cypermethrin, fenvalerate and bifenthrin, which are highly repellent to termites and provide a barrier around the structure. However, pyrethroid treatments do not diminish termite populations in soil, and termites in the vicinity continue to forage freely.⁷

Non-repellent termiticides include fipronil, imidacloprid and chlorfenapyr. These are relatively slow-acting, termites freely re-enter treated soil, and they pick up enough dose as they pass through the treated areas and transfer the chemical to their nestmates, causing the death of the whole colony. Non-repellent products are therefore preferred by professionals for treating structures that are already infested.⁷

17b.3 The argument this journal has already made twice

A repellent product produces a barrier and leaves the population intact. A non-repellent product is carried back and kills the colony.

That is precisely the distinction the ant social structure article drew, and the transfer mechanism is the one the cockroach bait article described. Three taxa, three literatures, and the same conclusion about repellency.

17b.4 The counterintuitive part

The non-repellent product is the one the termites walk through freely. A practitioner's instinct is that a barrier the insect avoids is better than one it crosses, and that instinct is exactly backwards here.

A repellent barrier protects the building and leaves the colony next to it. A non-repellent treatment is crossed, picked up, carried home and shared. The mechanism requires the insect to be unaware it has been treated, which is the same principle behind the delayed-action baits this journal described for cockroaches and ants.

17b.5 What the field trials showed

In a field study of two non-repellent liquids, all of the structures were termite free within 90 days, and 20 of the 23 treated colonies disappeared from the study areas altogether, probably because they were eliminated. Termite activity close to foundation walls dramatically decreased with imidacloprid and ceased altogether with fipronil, so that these two have effects much like baits.⁸

17b.6 Persistence in soil

A newer non-repellent, chlorantraniliprole, showed high persistence in four Midwestern soils for 705 days, with treated soil sampled periodically across that period consistently causing high mortality, and termites unable to completely penetrate 50 mm columns of treated soil.¹¹

Midwestern soils are the closest analogue in that literature to prairie conditions, which is worth noting in an article about a northern population.

Two years of persistence in soil is also a long time for any deposit. This journal's substrate and formulation article found residual life on structural surfaces measured in weeks to months; soil applied at a foundation behaves differently, being protected from light, abrasion and cleaning, which is why the numbers are not comparable.

17c. The baiting alternative

The approach that changed this field, and the one most relevant to a rare northern case.

17c.1 How it works

Monitoring stations are placed in the soil surrounding a structure. Once termites are found in the stations, monitoring devices are replaced with slow-acting baits such as the chitin synthesis inhibitor hexaflumuron. After elimination, monitoring resumes and bait is applied if new termite activity is detected.¹³

Baits containing the active ingredient are not used until termites are detected, an arrangement which drastically reduces pesticide use.⁹

17c.2 The quantity involved

Field studies have indicated that termite colonies were eliminated using less than 1 gram of hexaflumuron.¹³ Only a few grams are needed to eliminate a colony that may contain several hundred thousand termites, and because of the target-specific approach hexaflumuron was the first compound to be registered under the United States reduced risk pesticide initiative, with the system receiving a green chemistry award in 2000.¹⁰

17c.3 Why that is remarkable

Under a gram of active ingredient to eliminate a colony of hundreds of thousands of insects is the most favourable ratio of quantity applied to outcome achieved that this journal has encountered in any taxon.

It works because the colony does the distribution. That is the horizontal transfer principle again, and here it is doing the work that would otherwise require treating the soil around an entire building.

It also inverts the usual relationship between potency and quantity. A gram of an active that interferes with moulting, delivered to a colony that shares food, achieves what hundreds of litres of soil-applied barrier chemistry was previously used to attempt. The lever is the insect's own sociality rather than the dose.

17c.4 The documented eliminations

Reported field cases include a colony estimated at 730,000 termites eliminated after consuming 20 milligrams of the active, with station activity falling from around 2 grams per station per day to zero; and a colony of 1.0 million termites eliminated after consuming 233 milligrams over a ten-month period.¹²

17c.5 The selective baiting finding

A study on a different genus found that placement of bait in one of six active stations was sufficient to destroy a colony that was interconnected with multiple bait-free stations, generally requiring 4 to 8 weeks and less than 300 grams of bait.¹⁴

Treating one station in six worked because the colony is one connected system. That is the polydomy argument from the ant article expressed as a treatment economy.

17c.6 What the method requires that a spray does not

Stations have to be installed, then visited, then the monitoring devices swapped for bait when activity appears, then visited again until elimination, then monitored indefinitely afterwards.¹³

That is a relationship rather than a transaction, and it only works if somebody keeps returning. An owner who stops paying for monitoring has not bought a treatment that has finished; they have stopped a programme.

17c.7 The cost that is not chemical

The monitoring step is described as the most labour intensive and costly element of the system.¹⁰

So the approach that minimises pesticide maximises labour, which is the trade-off this journal has identified repeatedly. The cheap part is the chemistry and the expensive part is the person.

It also explains why the method is harder to sell than a barrier treatment. A soil treatment is a single visit with a visible product; a monitoring programme is an open-ended commitment with nothing to show for most of it. The economics article in this journal described exactly that difficulty in a different service, and the resolution is the same: the recurring cost is the thing that works.

17d. Where treatment fails

Two findings that keep this honest.

In one reported case, despite repeated soil termiticide treatments and a fumigation following the discovery of structural infestations, foraging activity remained strong at 6 to 10 grams per station per day, and activity of this colony did not decline even in winter months.¹²

17d.1 The biological control record

Biological agents including Beauveria bassiana have been trialled against termites, and field trials using these biological agents have been generally unsuccessful.¹³

This journal's entomopathogenic fungi article set out the case for that approach in other pests. For termites the field record does not support it, and we record the negative result because we have been enthusiastic about the mechanism elsewhere.

18. The diagnostic blind spot

The practical consequence of everything above.

The documented local case ran five to ten years before discovery.² That interval is the blind spot measured in years.

18.1 The structure of the failure

A technician inspecting a Winnipeg basement is not looking for termites, because the shared knowledge of the trade is that they are not here. A finding that is not looked for is not made.

This is the same failure this journal documented in the spider article, where a diagnosis was applied outside the species' range, running in the opposite direction: there, a species was assumed present where it was absent; here, a species is assumed absent where it has been recorded.

18.2 Why the belief persists

It is nearly right. Termites are genuinely not a routine Manitoba problem, and a technician who assumes their absence will be correct almost every time.

A heuristic that is correct almost always is very hard to dislodge, and its failures are concentrated in exactly the cases where being wrong is expensive.

19. What gets blamed instead

The alternative explanations available to an inspector who is not considering termites.

Concealed damage to structural timber in a Winnipeg basement has two ready explanations in this journal: decay fungi, which remove strength before any visible sign, and carpenter ants, which excavate galleries in moisture-compromised wood.

19.1 Why they fit

All three organisms produce hollowed or weakened wood in damp, low-traffic parts of a building. All three are associated with wood-soil contact and moisture. Two of them are common here and one is not.

The prior probability correctly favours the common explanations. The difficulty is that a technician who never entertains the third will explain every case with the first two, and will therefore never generate the observation that would update the belief.

19.2 The distinguishing features

Carpenter ant galleries are described as sandpaper smooth and kept clean, unlike termite galleries which are packed with mud and excrement. That contrast appeared in this journal's carpenter ant article, sourced from extension material, and it is the field distinction that separates the two.

20. What we would look for

Mud in the galleries. The feature that separates termite work from carpenter ant work.

Wood in contact with soil. Breaking that contact is half the Toronto cost line.¹

Swarming reproductives. The only caste that presents itself.⁵

Cellulose other than framing. Paper, books and cardboard are food.⁴

Worker size if any are found. Roughly 6 mm against roughly 20 mm.⁵

The history of the property. The known local case was an introduction, so imported materials and long-standing structures are the relevant question.²

20.1 And what we would not do

Reach for a pyrethroid. Repellent products form a barrier and leave the population in the soil intact.⁷

Treat on suspicion. The baiting approach exists precisely because active ingredient is withheld until termites are actually detected in a station.⁹

Assume southern guidance applies. Northern colonies are reported to differ in ways that matter for control.¹

21. What we do not know

This section is longer than usual because the honest answer to most questions about this subject is that we could not establish it.

Whether the 1987 population was eradicated. Our sources record the discovery and a municipal treatment¹² without recording the outcome. What is established is that termites did not disappear from the city: in August 2015 termites were confirmed in at least one Winnipeg home, reported as the first such finding in almost a decade.¹⁵ Whether that represents survival of the original population, a fresh introduction, or an unrelated site, we cannot say.

Which neighbourhood. The source says a neighbourhood of Winnipeg without naming it in the portion we read.²

What the treatment was. Not recorded in what we located.

Whether there have been other Manitoba records. We found none, which is not the same as there being none.

What the northern colony differences are. The source states they exist and matter for control without our copy specifying them.¹

21.1 Why we are publishing anyway

Because the documented fact is sufficient on its own. A thriving infestation was found in this city, having been present for years, and a practitioner who believes termites cannot occur here holds a belief the record contradicts.

Whether that particular population survived changes the probability of encountering one. It does not change the fact that the climate did not prevent establishment.

22. Limitations and open questions

The primary sources are old. The entomological account dates from the late 1980s,¹ and the Western Canada review restates the 1987 event rather than updating it in the portion we read.²

Two sources are encyclopedia entries. The species biology, colony sizes, reproductive output and taxonomy, and the related species material, come from general reference works.⁴⁶

One source is a commercial pest control company. The caste structure, worker sizes and the dampwood moisture association come from it.⁵

One is a society blog post by a student author. Used for the general Canadian distribution statement and colony size range.³

We have read excerpts rather than full papers. The 1989 account reaches us through a repository record, and the Western Canada review through a conference document, both partially.¹²

Sections 16, 18.1, 19.1, 11.1 and 17c.3 are our reasoning. The three-shelter mechanism, the structure of the diagnostic failure, the competing-explanation argument, the colony size expectation and the comparison of quantity to outcome are ours rather than sourced findings.

Three control sources are patent background or experimental sections. The monitoring and baiting description, the reduced risk registration note and the field elimination figures come from patent specifications.⁹¹⁰¹² Patent background is written to motivate an invention and we have treated it as attributed material.

One baiting study concerns a different genus. The selective baiting result is from work on Coptotermes rather than Reticulitermes, and we have cited it for the principle rather than as a direct finding about the species discussed here.¹⁴

All the control literature is from warmer regions. The efficacy figures, soil persistence data and baiting results come from the United States and Southeast Asia, and §8 says northern colonies differ.

This is not a statement that Manitoba has a termite problem. It is a statement that a population was documented here once and that the climatic argument for impossibility is weaker than the trade assumes. Those are different claims and we are making only the second.

Our commercial position. An article suggesting technicians should consider termites during inspections is an article that could generate work for us. We have tried to be correspondingly careful about §21, and a reader should weigh the incentive.

23. Conclusion

Eastern subterranean termites were recorded in Ontario in 1929 and found in a Toronto warehouse in 1938, apparently arriving by ship around 1935, and by the late 1980s twenty-nine Ontario towns reported ongoing problems with a single city spending just under a million dollars in one year.¹ In 1987 a thriving infestation was discovered in a Winnipeg neighbourhood, which city officials believed had been accidentally introduced at least five to ten years earlier, and which the municipality treated.¹²

The contemporary literature cited it as demonstrating the potential for survival in cold habitats, and noted that northern colonies of this species differ from their southern relatives in ways that matter for control.¹ We cannot tell you whether that population still exists, which neighbourhood it was in, or what was done to it, and §21 says so at length.

What follows from that is practical rather than historical. If the possibility is real, then the diagnosis matters, and the diagnosis turns on one observable: mud in the galleries, because the carpenter ant that produces otherwise similar damage keeps its galleries clean. And if the diagnosis is ever made, the treatment literature is clearer than most this journal has examined. A repellent product keeps termites out of a building and leaves the colony beside it. A non-repellent product is walked through, carried home and shared. And a monitoring programme has eliminated colonies of several hundred thousand insects on under a gram of active ingredient, by letting the colony distribute it.

The climate did not stop the insect, because it was never in the climate. It was in the soil under a heated building, which is a place this city keeps warm all winter at considerable expense, and which nobody here inspects for termites because everybody knows we do not have them.

References

1. Northern Subterranean Termites. Entomological account, late 1980s, consulted through a research repository record and read in excerpt. Used for the statements that the pest occurs across the southeastern states, north along the Atlantic coast to Maine, and westward along the southern shores of the Great Lakes; that research indicates northern R. flavipes colonies differ in a number of aspects from their southern relatives with implications for termite control efforts; that the species was recorded in the province in 1929; that in 1938 termites were found in a warehouse in the city of Toronto, apparently introduced by ship from the United States around 1935; that in Toronto alone the 1988 costs of termiticide treatments and of breaking wood-soil contact totalled about 0.9 million United States dollars; that 29 towns in the province of Ontario reported ongoing termite problems; and that in 1987 a thriving subterranean termite infestation was discovered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, demonstrating the potential for further northern expansion and survival of termites in cold habitats. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259000563_Northern_Subterranean_Termites
2. Termites in Western Canada. Conference or review document hosted by a wood preservation organisation, read in excerpt. Used for the statements that in Canada active infestations of the eastern subterranean termite are present in south western Ontario; that an infestation of eastern subterranean termite appeared in a neighbourhood of Winnipeg in 1987; that city officials believe the termites were accidentally introduced at least five to ten years prior to discovery; that the City of Winnipeg treated the properties; and that the western subterranean termite is reported on Vancouver Island, on the Sunshine Coast north of Vancouver, and in the city of Vancouver, with a southern Alberta location also appearing in its distribution discussion. https://woodpreservation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Philip.pdf
3. Identifying Termite Damage in Canada. Entomological Society of Canada blog post by a student author. Non-peer-reviewed source. Used for the statements that termites are often thought to infest only tropical or temperate areas but in fact thrive in most parts of southern Canada, especially along the coasts, and are commonly found in large cities; that the most common type of termite to infest Canadian homes is the subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes in the east and Reticulitermes hesperus in the west; and that subterranean termites spend most of their lives underground in colonies with up to 2 million members depending on the species. https://esc-sec.ca/2014/03/26/identifying-termite-damage-in-canada/
4. Reticulitermes flavipes. Encyclopedia entry. Cited as a general reference rather than primary literature. Used for the statements that the eastern subterranean termite is the most common termite found in North America and the most economically important wood destroying insect in the United States; that they feed on cellulose material such as structural wood in buildings, wooden fixtures, paper, books and cotton; that a mature colony can range from 20,000 workers to as high as 5 million workers with the primary queen laying 5,000 to 10,000 eggs per year; that the species is the most widely distributed Reticulitermes species, believed to originate in the southeastern United States and considered exotic or invasive elsewhere; and for the taxonomic placement of termites within the order Blattodea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticulitermes_flavipes
5. Termites: Facts and Identification, Control and Prevention. Commercial pest control company information page. Trade source with a direct commercial interest. Used for the statements that the most common pest species of termites in Canada include the eastern subterranean termite, the western subterranean termite and the Pacific dampwood termite; that subterranean species are responsible for the bulk of damage inflicted on homes while dampwood species target moist and rotting wood; that the presence of dampwood termites usually indicates an ongoing moisture problem; that termite colonies contain three main social castes of workers, soldiers and reproductives, each differing slightly in appearance; and that subterranean termites produce smaller workers of approximately 6 mm while dampwood termite workers measure about 20 mm. https://www.orkincanada.ca/pests/other/termites/
6. Reticulitermes tibialis. Encyclopedia entry. Cited as a general reference. Used for the statements that this species tends to live in drier habitats, can be distinguished from similar species in much the same geographical area by gene sequencing, and has a wider distribution in North America than other members of its genus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticulitermes_tibialis
7. Termite infestation confirmed in Winnipeg home. National broadcaster news report, August 2015. News source rather than scientific literature. Used for the report that termites were confirmed in at least one Winnipeg home in August 2015, described as the first such finding in almost a decade. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/termite-infestation-confirmed-in-winnipeg-home-1.3199374
8. FS338: Termite Prevention and Control. Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Extension source. Used for the statements that non-repellent termiticides include fipronil, imidacloprid and chlorfenapyr, that these active ingredients are relatively slow-acting, that termites freely re-enter treated soil and pick up enough dose as they pass through treated areas to transfer the chemical to their nestmates causing the death of the whole colony; that commonly used repellent termiticides include permethrin, cypermethrin, fenvalerate and bifenthrin, belonging to the pyrethroid group, which are highly repellent to termites and provide a barrier around the structure; that pyrethroid treatments do not diminish termite populations in soil and termites in the vicinity continue to forage freely; and that non-repellent termiticides are therefore preferred materials used by professionals for treating structures that are already infested. https://njaes.rutgers.edu/fs338/
9. Effect of Fipronil on Subterranean Termite Colonies (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) in the Field. Journal of Economic Entomology, 105(2), 523. Used for the findings that there was a clear effect of insecticide treatment on colonies, that all of the structures were termite free within 90 days, that 20 of the 23 treated colonies disappeared from the study areas altogether probably because they were eliminated, that termite activity close to the foundation walls dramatically decreased in the case of imidacloprid and ceased altogether in the case of fipronil, and that in these respects the two non-repellent liquid termiticides have effects much like baits. https://academic.oup.com/jee/article/105/2/523/894676
10. Dimensionally stable sensor for monitoring termite activity. United States patent specification, background section. Unusual provenance, cited for the attributed account it summarises. Used for the description of the monitoring and baiting programme incorporating the insect growth regulator hexaflumuron, attributed to Su (1994), Journal of Economic Entomology 87, 389 to 397; for the statement that unlike conventional soil insecticide treatment the programme relies on routine monitoring, with monitoring devices replaced by baits containing hexaflumuron when termites are found; that baits containing the active ingredient are not used until termites are detected, an arrangement which drastically reduces pesticide use; that it usually takes less than one gram of hexaflumuron to eliminate a colony; and that the monitoring step is the most labour intensive and costly element of the system. https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/6404210
11. Hermetically sealed baits for subterranean termites. United States patent specification, background section. Unusual provenance, cited for the attributed account it summarises. Used for the description of stations containing monitoring devices placed in soil to detect termites, with the monitoring device replaced by bait containing a small amount of insecticide such as hexaflumuron once termites are found, the active ingredient distributed throughout the colony population until the entire colony is eliminated; for the statement that because of the target-specific approach only a few grams are needed to eliminate a colony that may contain several hundred thousand termites; and for the note that hexaflumuron was the first compound registered under the United States reduced risk pesticide initiative, with the system receiving a green chemistry award in 2000. https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/6857223
12. Efficacy of Chlorantraniliprole in Controlling Structural Infestations of the Eastern Subterranean Termite in the USA. PubMed Central PMC5620712. Used for the statements that subterranean termites are the most economically important structural pests in the United States and that Reticulitermes flavipes is the most widely distributed species; that soil treatment with a liquid termiticide is a widely used control method; that the study assessed a non-repellent termiticide in controlling structural infestations across three states and determined the post-treatment fate of colonies; that in all three states microsatellite markers indicated that only one R. flavipes colony was infesting each structure; and that in a study simulating commercial applications the compound showed high persistence in four Midwestern soils for 705 days, with treated soil sampled periodically from 0 to 705 days consistently causing high mortality and termites unable to completely penetrate 50 millimetre columns of treated soil. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5620712/
13. Methods and systems for detecting and controlling subterranean termites. United States patent specification, experimental section. Unusual provenance, cited for the field results it reports. Used for the reported elimination of a colony estimated at 730,000 termites after consumption of 20 milligrams of hexaflumuron, with monitoring station activity falling from approximately 2 grams per station per day to zero; for the reported elimination of a colony of 1.0 million termites after consumption of 233 milligrams over a ten-month period; and for the reported case in which, despite repeated soil termiticide treatments and a fumigation following discovery of structural infestations, foraging activity remained strong at 6 to 10 grams per station per day and did not decline even in winter months. https://image-ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/6397516
14. A review of subterranean termite control practices and prospects. Review article. Used for the statement that insecticides used for ground treatments during the 1930s to 1950s included sodium arsenite, trichlorobenzene, DDT, pentachlorophenol, creosote and ethylene dibromide; for the description of the monitoring and baiting programme in which stations are placed in soil surrounding a structure and monitoring devices are replaced with slow-acting baits such as the chitin synthesis inhibitor hexaflumuron once termites are found, with monitoring resuming after elimination and bait applied if new activity is detected; for the statement that field studies have indicated colonies were eliminated using less than one gram of hexaflumuron; and for the statement that field trials using biological agents including Beauveria bassiana have been generally unsuccessful. https://www.davidmoore.org.uk/21st_Century_Guidebook_to_Fungi_PLATINUM/REPRINT_collection/Su_Scheffrahn_termite_pest_management.pdf
15. Efficacy of Minimum Application of Chlorfluazuron Baiting to Control Urban Subterranean Termite Populations. PubMed Central PMC7564584. Concerns a different genus, cited for the baiting principle it demonstrates. Used for the statements that termite baiting can be costly and time consuming, that the study treated one of six active termite stations with baits to eradicate populations, that placement of bait in one of the active stations was sufficient to destroy a colony interconnected with multiple bait-free stations, and that it required an average of four to eight weeks and less than 300 grams of bait to remove an infestation at the study site. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7564584/