Do Termites Bite? What Every Houston Homeowner Needs To Know

A termite colony has three castes. Workers do the eating, building and feeding of everyone else, and they are the ones chewing through your framing. Reproductives, the kings, queens and winged swarmers, keep the colony going. Soldiers defend it. Soldiers are the only termites with jaws built to bite, and those jaws exist to fight off ants, not people. Their mandibles are so overgrown that soldiers cannot feed themselves; workers feed them.

A soldier termite will bite if you pick it up or pin it against your skin, which is about the only way a bite happens. Termites are slow, they avoid light and open air, and they have no reason to come looking for you. They do not feed on blood and they are not known to bite pets either. If you have been bitten by something in your house, a termite is near the bottom of the list of suspects, even if you know the house has them.

The species in the Houston area with the largest and most aggressive soldiers is the Formosan subterranean termite, and you are still unlikely to meet one. Formosan colonies live in the soil and in carton nests inside walls and trees, and the soldiers stay in the galleries. Our guide to Formosan subterranean termites covers what they do that actually matters, which is structural.

No. Since termites spend their lives inside wood or underground, the only ones most people ever see are the winged reproductives, called swarmers or alates. They leave the colony in spring, usually on a warm, humid day after rain, to pair off and start new colonies. Native species swarm in daylight; Formosan termites swarm at dusk and after dark and pile up around porch lights and lit windows.

Swarmers have small mandibles that are not capable of breaking skin. They are clumsy fliers, they lose their wings within hours, and most of a swarm is dead or eaten by the next day. They are also constantly mistaken for ants, which is where the bite worry usually comes from. The tell: termite swarmers have a straight-sided body with no pinched waist, straight antennae, and two pairs of wings of equal length. Flying ants have a pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and a front pair of wings longer than the back pair. Our ants vs. termites guide has side-by-side pictures.

A swarm is not a bite risk. It is, though, the single clearest sign that there is an established colony very close to the house, and a swarm indoors means the colony is in the house. Collect a few of the insects or the shed wings in a bag and book an inspection. Our guide to when termites swarm explains what the timing tells you.

It is a relief to learn termite bites are a non-issue, and the relief should last about a minute. A colony that is close enough to the house for you to be wondering about bites is close enough to be feeding on it, and termites feed for years without being seen. They eat framing from the inside out, follow plumbing up through slabs, and in the case of Formosan termites build nests inside wall voids. By the time a homeowner notices soft trim or a blistered baseboard, the damage is usually well along.

Standard homeowners insurance in Texas generally excludes termite damage, which is why an annual inspection and, where termites are found, a proper termite treatment are the protection. If you have seen swarmers, shed wings, mud tubes on the foundation or wood that sounds hollow, do not wait for the next annual.