Since your home is a major financial investment, you want to do everything you can to protect it from termite damage. If termites are left unchecked, they can do so much damage that they lower the value of your home. A pest control company, such as Ace Walco & Sons Termite & Pest Control, will monitor your property and treat it for termites when activity is noticed. This approach is better than waiting to get help once you notice termite damage. One thing the exterminator might use is bait. Here's a little information about how termite bait stations work to keep the pests under control.

Where The Bait Is Placed In Your Yard

Subterranean termites usually live outdoors, although they might live underneath your house. They like the outdoors because they like to live deep in the soil. For that reason, the bait traps are usually buried in your yard near your home. The exterminator uses an auger to dig a narrow hole in your yard and then drops in a bait station. Several bait stations are installed around the perimeter of your house. They are spaced several feet apart so your entire house is surrounded. Additional traps may be placed in other parts of your yard if there are areas likely to attract the pests, such as a woodpile.

A termite bait station contains food that the termites like. It might be damp wood or cardboard. The station may contain poison when it is installed, initially or the exterminator may just place the food in at first and monitor the bait for activity before adding the poison. Although you'll have several stations in your yard, they won't interfere with your ability to mow the lawn. The stations are flush with the top of the soil so they don't pose a tripping hazard or attract interest from pets or kids.

How Bait Stations Control Termites

Termite bait stations serve two purposes. They alert the pest control company to the presence of termites on your property so further inspections and treatments can be started before damage is done. They also poison the pests to help eradicate them. It may be possible to eliminate a termite infestation using bait stations alone.

The bait traps themselves don't attract the termites. When there is a termite colony underground on or close to your property, there are always termites out scouting around for food. At some point, the termites will stumble onto the bait stations and begin chewing on the wood or cardboard inside. It might take some time. Bait traps don't work fast. It could take days, weeks, or months for a termite to run into a bait station as it digs tunnels through the soil in search of food.

Your exterminator will check the traps periodically for signs of termite bodies chewing on the bait. In this way, he or she is alerted to active termites on your property. When a termite finds the food source in the trap, it puts down an odor trail that other termites follow. When poison is added to the trap, many termites will be exposed to it when they follow the odor trail. The chemicals used in termite bait traps are slow acting. This allows plenty of time to pass after the termites ingest the poison so they can return to the nest to spread the chemicals to other termites.

This process might be enough to eradicate an entire colony of termites using bait poison alone, although it could take a much longer time than using chemical sprays. For that reason, other forms of termite treatments are often used along with bait stations to get quicker results.