EARTH.COM - Termites chew through the wooden framing of houses and cost property owners billions of dollars every year. Fixing this severe property damage usually requires pest control workers to pump homes full of highly toxic gases.
Families have to pack up and evacuate their houses for several days during these extreme chemical treatments. We now have a much safer way to eliminate these hidden pests without bringing harsh poisons indoors.
Entomologists at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) designed a completely new baiting system specifically to stop drywood termites. They figured out how to use the basic biology of the insect against it.
Tricking termites with pinene
The scientists used a natural pine scent called pinene to chemically mimic food. This specific smell easily overrides the natural avoidance instincts of the termite.
Worker bugs follow the scent directly to small bait stations placed around the outside of a house. They actively eat the bait matrix inside and carry it back to their nest.
“We saw significant differences in the death rates using insecticide alone versus the insecticide plus pinene,” explained said Dong-Hwan Choe, UCR entomology professor and senior paper author.