It's a warm, sticky evening, usually just after a storm. You turn the lights on and within minutes there are dozens of winged insects around them, on the flyscreens, and crawling on the window sills. By morning there are little piles of wings everywhere.
Most people call them flying ants. On the Sunshine Coast in spring and early summer, a lot of the time they're termites.
That sounds alarming, and sometimes it is. But a swarm is also the one moment when you get hard, physical evidence of termites without anyone drilling a hole. Whether it's a problem depends almost entirely on where they came from. This post shows you how to tell termites from ants, how to read what you're seeing, and what to do (and not do) in the next day or so.
Why termites fly at all
A mature termite colony produces winged males and females called alates. On the right night, warm, humid, still and often after rain, the colony opens small exit slits and releases them. They fly weakly, often towards lights, drop to the ground, break off their wings, pair up and try to start a new colony in moist soil or timber.
On the Coast, the flights run through spring and summer, with November and December usually the busiest months. Different species fly at different times, so you can see more than one swarm in a season.
Two things follow from this. First, a swarm means a mature colony is close by, because young colonies don't produce alates. Second, the swarmers themselves are not the danger. Almost all of them die within hours, eaten by birds, geckos and frogs or dried out. The danger is the colony they came from.
Termite or ant? How to tell
Catch a few in a jar or take a clear, close photo. You're looking at three things: the waist, the antennae and the wings.
| Termite (alate) | Flying ant | |
|---|---|---|
| Waist | Thick and straight. The body is roughly the same width all the way along. | Pinched in tight between the chest and the abdomen, like an hourglass. |
| Antennae | Straight, like a string of tiny beads. | Bent, with a clear elbow in the middle. |
| Wings | Four wings, all about the same length, noticeably longer than the body. They come off very easily. | Four wings, the front pair clearly bigger than the back pair. They stay on. |
| Colour | Usually pale brown to dark brown, with milky or smoky wings. | Varies, often black, red-brown or amber. |
| The morning after | Piles of loose wings on sills, floors and in spider webs. | Far fewer loose wings. |
The loose wings are the easiest tell of all. If you find drifts of identical wings and not many bodies, you've almost certainly had termites.
Outside or inside: this is what matters
Swarm outside, drawn to your lights
Alates fly towards light, so a swarm around your outdoor lights, the street light or the verandah tells you there's a mature colony somewhere in the neighbourhood. It could be in your yard, a neighbour's tree, a reserve down the road or a street tree. On its own it doesn't mean your house is affected.
It is, however, a very good reminder. If your last termite inspection was more than a year ago, or your barrier or bait system is out of its service schedule, now is the time.
Swarm coming from inside the house
This is the one to take seriously. If alates are coming out of a wall, a skirting board, a door or window frame, a crack in the slab or a gap in the floor, especially with the windows and doors shut, the colony is very likely in or under the building and has been feeding there for a while. Colonies don't swarm until they're established.
Signs it came from inside:
- Wings or alates concentrated in one room, or around one wall or window.
- Alates appearing from a small slit or hole, sometimes with a smear of mud around it.
- Wings inside when doors, windows and screens were closed all night.
- Swarmers in the garage or under the house around a particular post, stump or slab edge.
The short version: swarm outside around the lights means a colony somewhere nearby, so check your protection is current. Swarm coming out of the house itself means a colony that's already in, so get it inspected this week.
What to do in the next 24 hours
- Turn off outside lights and close the screens. Fewer get inside, and the swarm is over in an hour or two either way.
- Collect some evidence. A few alates and wings in a jar or zip bag, and photos of where they appeared. Note the room and the exact spot.
- Vacuum up the rest. Swarmers can't hurt the house, so cleaning up is fine.
- Leave the exit point alone. If you can see where they came out, don't spray it, seal it, fill it or pull the skirting off. That spot tells us where the colony is feeding.
- Book an inspection if they came from inside, or if you can't tell.
What not to do
Don't spray the wall with surface spray. This is the classic mistake. A can of fly spray kills the swarmers you can see, which were going to die anyway. The spray does nothing to the colony, and if it gets into the workings it can make the termites move their feeding to somewhere else in the wall, somewhere we can't find as easily. That makes the treatment slower and harder.
Don't break the timber open to look. Same problem. Disturbed termites pull back and reroute. An inspection with the right tools can find activity behind the lining without opening it up.
Don't assume it's fine because they've gone. The swarm lasts one evening. The colony that produced it is still there next week.
What an inspection finds after a swarm
When we inspect after a swarm, we start where the alates came out and work outwards: walls, window and door frames, the subfloor or slab edge, the roof void where it's safe to access, and the yard around the house, including trees, stumps, sleepers and timber on the ground. Walls get scanned with a Termatrac radar unit, which picks up movement inside a wall without drilling, and a moisture meter, because termite workings hold moisture that sound timber doesn't.
If there's activity, the next step is locating the colony, or treating in a way that reaches it, and then protecting the house going forward with a chemical barrier or a bait system around the building. If there isn't, you'll know where the conducive conditions are and what to fix. More detail on the process is on our termite inspection and termite control pages, and our list of 10 signs you may have termites is worth a look while you're waiting.
Reducing the odds next season
Swarmers need moist soil or damp timber close to a building to get a new colony going, and an established colony nearby needs an easy way in. The things that help are simple:
- Fix leaking taps, hot water overflows and air conditioner drips that keep soil wet against the house.
- Keep garden beds and mulch below the slab edge or weep holes, and pulled back from the wall.
- Remove timber in contact with the ground: old sleepers, stored offcuts, dead stumps.
- Keep the slab edge visible all the way round, so mud leads can be seen.
- Keep your inspection and any barrier or bait system servicing on schedule. Twelve months is the standard; more often on a house with history or bush close by.
The honest summary
Winged termites around the lights on a humid spring night are common on the Sunshine Coast, and most of the time they're a reminder, not an emergency. Winged termites coming out of your house are different. That's a colony that's been feeding for a while, and the next day or two decides how easy it is to deal with. Catch a few, note where they came from, leave the spot alone, and get someone to look.
Found Winged Termites Inside?
Leave the spot alone and give Mick a call. He'll tell you straight whether it needs a visit this week. Owner operated, 10+ years on the Sunshine Coast.
Call 0401 166 155 Book an Inspection