Keeping Termites

[tzpnm]

Hi everyone, I am a big fan of social insects and I was wondering about termites. I read that it is possible for a termite worker to turn into a queen and produce eggs, and so I was wondering if the types of termites you can buy off of websites like Carolina would be capable of becoming queens and giving me a full fledged colony. Also, are termites able to chew through plastic bins, such as the types that roaches are often kept in?

Thanks

 

[arachnoherp]

Hey! Yes termites can be queens but its kinda different then ants, basically they remain in a juvenille phase until there is a shortage of a certain role and once that happens the nymphs become the needed role, be it worker, soldier, alate, queen , king but once theyve taken up a role it cant be reversed so if you buy or collect a bunch of workers and soldiers thats all you will have so if youre trying to "generate" a queen id collect workers and as many eggs and small nymphs as possible. To answer the other question it depends on the species but im pretty sure most can chew through soft plastic. Another option is waiting for nuptial flights and catch your own swarming queens and kings. Ive quickly learned raising termites is a bit more challenging than ants lol

 

[arachnoherp]

Easiest ones to do or at least most common is the subterranean termite, you could use a large tote of some sort and fill it with soil and place a log you know is infested inside the tote,you will start seeing mud tunnels quickly if theres enough of them and as far as food goes, wood, paper towels, cardboard just makes sure it has no chemicals because that will kill them cery quickly ive learned this lol. Good references to look at are a few of the ant forums. One guy whose raised them pretty well frim queens and kings goes by dspdrew you could probably look that up on Google and put termite behind it and his threads will pop up.

 

[tzpnm]

Thanks for the help man, I really appreciate it.

I'm gonna try making a termite trap by rubber banding some cardboard together, burying it, and then coming back after a week or two to see if I get some termites. As for the enclosure, I will soak some oak wood, and put it in a plexiglass terrarium with substrate and some springtails, and then cover it with a towel or something so that the termites will be safe. I'll check out the ant forum as well to gather some more info. It's alate season where I live, but I never ever have any luck catching nuptial ant queens so I'll probably stick to trying to get secondary reproductives.

 

[arachnoherp]

Good that your adding sprintails, mold was my number one killer, as far the secondary reproductives go they should be pretty obvious looking and if you can get at least one you should be good. As for the termite trap make sure you place it near or a known colony or all youll get is earwigs and spiders lol

 

[schmiggle]

I have a small correction to make regarding termite workers.

If I remember right, workers are actually the final juvenile instar. They are sort of like pleuripotent stem cells--they can molt into reproductives or soldiers, each of which is a final instar, or they can remain as a worker. However, this means that if you get a whole bunch of workers, some will molt into reproductives. These reproductives can only start a new colony without a nuptial flight in some species, but I believe subterranean termites are one of those species.

 

[tzpnm]

I have a small correction to make regarding termite workers.

If I remember right, workers are actually the final juvenile instar. They are sort of like pleuripotent stem cells--they can molt into reproductives or soldiers, each of which is a final instar, or they can remain as a worker. However, this means that if you get a whole bunch of workers, some will molt into reproductives. These reproductives can only start a new colony without a nuptial flight in some species, but I believe subterranean termites are one of those species.

Ah, if I end up catching nothing good I'll try ordering some workers off the internet. Hopefully cardboard and rubberbands are attractive to termites.

 

[The Snark]

You will want to try a broad spectrum of foods for them. Oak is probably not the best food source as some varieties have a high tannin content.

(PS Putting @schmiggle on the line here regarding the oddities of Tannin and it's effects on some animals, especially invertebrates. Clue us in?)

 

[schmiggle]

You will want to try a broad spectrum of foods for them. Oak is probably not the best food source as some varieties have a high tannin content.

(PS Putting @schmiggle on the line here regarding the oddities of Tannin and it's effects on some animals, especially invertebrates. Clue us in?)

I know nothing about tannins. I take it they precipitate proteins out of solution. Try this page:
http://poisonousplants.ansci.cornell.edu/toxicagents/tannin.html
I would definitely go for oak over pretty much any conifer (and definitely don't use cedar!), but I don't think most termites are super picky. Subterranean termites eat degraded old wood anyway--I've always found termites under logs with wet rot. This article says they like oak and birch, and if you were going purely off of chemical toxicity you would think birch would be termite resistant:
https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2015/nov/termites/
But I guess don't give them teak. This next paper might be more useful:
http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/10922/19_239-250.pdf?sequence=1
They seem to love sugar maple, tupelo, poplar, and sycamore. In most places in the US you should be able to pretty easily get all of those except tupelo. If you're using straight up planks, of course, you have a wide selection. The following guy says they like soft wood:
https://drionconstruction.com/will-termite-companies-never-tell-part-2/
But his data seems questionable to me. However, if you want to pre-dampen and rot your wood, as I said, all the termites I have ever found in the wild have been under logs with wet rot (I'm sure this is not true of dry wood termites--all I have in my area are subterranean ones).
Hope this isn't an overwhelmingly large amount of info. I can't imagine these things are that hard, given how widespread and pesky they are.

 

[The Snark]

I can't imagine these things are that hard, given how widespread and pesky they are.

To put it another way, if you fail raising a colony of termites you really need a new hobby. Speaking of which, it's time to Chaindrite <TM> the downstairs bathroom again. The little barstards have chewed tunnels inside the brick and mortar walls.
Right. Softwoods R Us, the delicatessen of choice. Newspaper also works in a pinch. Wet it and watch it disappear before your very eyes.
We get about 3 hours of mail sitting in our mailbox before it starts getting chewed to chowder.

 

[Galapoheros]

Rotting wood, newspaper... There used to be a sticky about it on this site, others have obviously googled and reported. I remember that in the sticky, the author didn't have problems with them going through plastic but he(and I) have had problems with them building mud-tunnels up the sides of plastic containers and escaping that way.

 

[The Snark]

the author didn't have problems with them going through plastic

I'll give the little sots another 50 years of evolution before they are packing the organic version of plasma torches and LASERs.

 

[VolkswagenBug]

I haven't kept termites, so I don't really have much useful information, but be very careful not to let even one escape. Termites are not like dubias where they'll (usually) just dry out and die when in a dry house.

 

[schmiggle]

I actually forgot something very important. If I remember right, the main problems people had with termites was the size of the colony. Subterranean termite colonies are in the hundreds of thousands of workers range, up to about a million; Formosan termite colonies can have several million workers. However, other termite species, such as drywood termites, have much smaller colonies. What you're likely to find is most dependent on where you live, but also depends to a lesser extent on where you look.

 

[tzpnm]

Thanks for the help everyone!

I'll place my termite trap hopefully later this week. I live in a city so the only place close by is the park, but I've seen lots of alates so I'm pretty sure there are termites there in the less tended to areas.

 

[The Mantis Menagerie]

I know that this thread is old, but I was hoping to get some information on raising termites. I have read some discussions where people have speculated that Eremobates sp. camel spiders may depend on termites for certain nutrients in their diet. I was curious if anyone knows more about this and whether the type of termite would make a difference. From reading this thread I concluded that the subterranean termite requires moisture. Is that correct and does that mean they would be less likely to infest a house? If all termite species could be a pest in a house, would a small species of cockroach, considering they are the closest relatives of termites, work as a good substitute? I already have German cockroaches in my house, so could I capture a few, clean them somehow to prevent diseases associated with pest roaches, and then start a colony?

 

[WildSpider]

I know that this thread is old, but I was hoping to get some information on raising termites. I have read some discussions where people have speculated that Eremobates sp. camel spiders may depend on termites for certain nutrients in their diet. I was curious if anyone knows more about this and whether the type of termite would make a difference. From reading this thread I concluded that the subterranean termite requires moisture. Is that correct and does that mean they would be less likely to infest a house? If all termite species could be a pest in a house, would a small species of cockroach, considering they are the closest relatives of termites, work as a good substitute? I already have German cockroaches in my house, so could I capture a few, clean them somehow to prevent diseases associated with pest roaches, and then start a colony?

We keep lots of termites. We didn't even have to find them. They found us !