Formosans on the Move: Atlanta

It’s a first that nobody wants to be a part of. After receiving a call from a panicked homeowner, Greg Holley, president of Zone Pest Solutions, dispatched a technician to diagnose what he was certain was a termite swarm at the home in a nearby golf course subdivision north of Atlanta.

“I got a phone call from the technician shortly after,” Holley says. “He told me, ‘Hey boss, I may have found something different.’”

That “something different” turned out to be the first confirmed Formosan termite infestation in the north Atlanta area. It was a moment Holley and his team were prepared for, but not hoping for.

“We’ve been training for the last 10 years on Formosan termites and what they look like,” he says, “but we’ve never had them in this area. So now we’ve had our first Formosan infestation, and we’ve been working on remediation for about six weeks.”

Preparation Meets the Threat

The house is much the same as others in the neighborhood — two stories plus a walkout basement and a well-landscaped yard with mature trees. To a casual observer, nothing about the house screams “termites.” After a grueling inspection, however, Holley and his team identified multiple feeding sites on three sides of the house and on all three levels. Due to the locations of the sites and the fact that the team didn’t immediately find any mud tubes connecting with the ground, the team installed Recruit^® AG FlexPack^® above-ground bait stations.

“I think we found six different sites,” Holley says, “and we put above-ground stations on each. On three, we had feeding within a week. Since then, we’ve added a couple of other locations, and we’re getting feeding on those as well. So we have three or four strong feeding sites on the property now.”

After confirming the termites as Formosan and making the initial treatment, Holley reached out to his network to find out how termite control professionals in Formosan-heavy areas were handling their infestations.

“All the advice I got from other operators was, ‘Don’t even worry about the ground stations right now,’” Holley says. “‘There may be a carton nest; they may not even be in contact with the ground. Do the above-ground stations. Hold off on perimeter stations.’ I’ve found that to be great advice.”

Northward Movement

The Formosan threat has been moving gradually north since the non-native species was first identified in the southern United States in the late 1950s. Warm, humid, food-rich areas like southern Florida, New Orleans and Houston have long been known as Formosan hot spots, though warmer winters and intrastate shipping have contributed to the northern spread of the Formosans’ territory.

“In the late ’90s, there was a lot of talk here about Formosans,” Holley says, “and then it just sort of went away. For the 20 years after that, I don’t know that there were many or any Formosans identified in the Atlanta area, especially north Atlanta. Now, that line from Florida has continued to move up into Georgia, into south Atlanta and Columbus, so we felt like Formosans were coming our way.”

Holley and his homeowner client are fortunate the technician originally dispatched to the home, Ryan Gee, had the training and the foresight to identify the termites as something other than the native subterranean species.

“The scary thing about Formosans is, it’s not easy to look at damage and identify Formosans that way,” Holley says. “There are obvious differences when you look at the termites themselves, so that’s something we all have to start doing. Yes, you may have found damage, but did you find a termite? Did you identify it, and do you know whether it’s an Eastern sub or a Formosan? Because that could affect your treatment protocol.”

Despite the severity of the infestation, Holley says he was never tempted to “double up” by combining the above-ground bait stations with perimeter liquid applications.

“What we’re trying to do is get termites to this bait as fast as we can,” Holley says. “And we’ve learned enough to know that using a liquid perimeter treatment with the bait is not going to help us do that. All that does is prevent them from feeding as quickly as we want them to.”

Holley’s determination to get insects feeding quickly is well-founded. Recent research demonstrates that as little as 16 grams of Recruit^® HD bait is enough to initiate the collapse of a million-strong colony.

“At this point,” he says, “we’ve easily fed the colony at least 100 grams of bait. So we’re already able to identify areas where we had damage initially, but we’re not able to find termites there now. And in areas where we are finding termites, we’re struggling to find workers, so we know we’re gaining traction.”

And while this homeowner may ultimately be facing an unwelcome repair bill, Holley and his team are thankful to have been able to handle such a severe infestation and have been impressed by how quickly the Sentricon® system began to work.

“We’ve not had to have a lot of patience,” he says. “The feeding has been very aggressive. I really think termites were in some of these above-ground stations before we left the house.”

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