4 Responses to “What Is A Natural Insecticide For Termites In The Garden?”

1. Lar Says:
   February 3rd, 2010 at 2:33 pm

   First of all you are dealing with two types of insects, Ants and Termites. treatment for one would not do for the other, even though both live below the ground surface of the ground, the treatment would be different.
   Termites live below the ground somewhere between 1 foot and 30 feet depending on the water level. ants are generally closer to the surface, you can try boiling water for the ants. Not sure what kind of natural remedy’s are out there. I don’t know of any for termites, I have been at this for many years. Best you look at the 2 links in the reference box below.

2. john s Says:
   February 3rd, 2010 at 2:37 pm

   As has already been suggested you are looking at two different types of insects. Quick entomology lesson for you:
   Ants are from the order Hymenoptera and so are closely related to bees and wasps. Termites (or white ants) are from the order Isoptera which surprisingly are more closely related to cockroaches.
   Ants generally feed on plant materials and dead animals of all sizes so they are somewhat scavengers looking for food stuffs on the ground. Ants will track until they find food, hence ant trails. Termites feed exclusively on cellulose mostly wood but also paper (which is made from wood) on occasion they have been known to eat through polystyrene and other strange materials, but that is more likely so they can get to their food.
   Both families of insects are social insects which means they have a king, queen and workers and the young developing insects (to keep it simple). Social insects cannot function if the queen is taken out. There sometimes is a bit of a back up plan where another member of the colony can develop into the queen but most often kill the queen and the colony will die. I’m not going to explain why…too long.
   So what does this mean for you. If you want to eliminate your termites or ants you need to get to the heart of the colony and kill the queen, this is generally done by a bait which the insects feed on and take back to the colony and spread amongs the colony. There are some baiting products (like Sentricon’s bait) that can do this but generally you need a professional pest controller to use them usually because of the countries laws but sometimes by the manufactures request, ‘cos you need to understand the insect for them to work right.
   The best natural way to prevent termites from invading your garden is to remove wood lying on the ground. Termites need wood and moisture to survive. Manage the moisture levels around your garden and their potential food sources and they will move elsewhere. A physical barrier like a sheet of metal burried in the ground in a trench around your garden could stop them, they would need to make a mud lead over the metal to get “through”. They could possibly go under but burry the barrier to a depth where you hit a real hard surface.
   When it comes to ants, again try and keep the yard clean of food stuffs but I know this can be real hard when it comes to ants. Sometimes chemical barriers or sticky barriers around an area can prevent them from getting in. You could try something like Tea Tree Oil which most insects hate, and can kill many of them. You could try mixing it up in some base oil like vegetable oil and spraying it on the ground —- maybe not the ants would be attracted to the vegetable oil!! Try mixing it in water and put in a couple of drops of liquid detergent to break the surface tension and allow the tea tree oil to disperse. You’ll have to play around with the rates or do a google search on this.
   Remember, killing either termites or ants that you can see is easy, but your problem will still persist unless you get to the heart of your problem the queen.

3. BlueSeve Says:
   February 3rd, 2010 at 3:04 pm

   there are several action steps to killing fire ants and its important to know the termit treatment cost.. 1. do an inspection. 2. kill the queen with dryice 3. use boiling water.

4. angelwin Says:
   February 3rd, 2010 at 3:26 pm

   unless the ants are fire ants, neither termite or ant will be an issue to the garden…with the termites, what ever you may use will probably stop the termites where you are seeing them, but may just cause them to feed elsewhere nearby, maybe the house

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