If you’ve got Coptotermes, sometimes one month the whole colony is gone, they’re super aggressive. Then you’ve got Schedorhinotermes, which is another aggressive species but can take five, six months because they don’t molt as often throughout the year. It’s the molting process where they die out. In the winter sometimes, they’re metabolism is slower and they can take longer to molt. Generally it’s between three and four months we find, in most cases, the colony is completely gone. But if it’s not, just keep applying bait, you don’t have to do the full amount, but just keep adding to it, let them feed be patient because sometimes they haven’t molted yet. They’ve eaten enough bait to die out, it’s just a matter of that molting process happening.
A colony only needs to consume 100gm of bait to kill the whole colony. We’re feeding them more than that, we want to be super safe and make sure they’ve eaten enough to kill that colony out. Even if it’s taken four and five months, just keep adding a little bit, keep them feeding, and what you find, the last stage of colony elimination is you see all soldiers. They’re the ones with the mandibles, you’ll see the little nippers on them – they can’t feed. When you see all soldiers at the end of it, that means the colony is pretty much gone because the workers have died out, the workers feed the soldiers. At the start you’ve got 80% workers, 20% soldiers, but once you see the colony coming to the end, you see all the ones that are left with the nippers wandering aimlessly, that means the next stage is the colony is completely gone. Just remember we’re killing millions not thousands, so it’s a patience game, just keep monitoring and baiting and over time you’ll definitely get that colony elimination.
