People often blame a cockroach problem on poor housekeeping. While cleaning floors, kitchens, and bathrooms is useful and very important to reduce food sources used by cockroaches, they may get inside and cause an infestation for other reasons. These
pests can hitch a ride on infested items brought inside, get indoors via cracks and gaps in the home’s exterior, enter through drains or sewer pipes and a few species of cockroaches can fly inside when attracted to lights.
While cockroaches are one of the most common pest problems, they are also one of the most stubborn. Infestations are hard to get rid of because the insects hide in a host of areas, breed quickly, have a very high reproductive potential and may develop
resistance to pesticides.
Cockroaches often taint food with E. coli and Salmonella bacteria, so it’s not safe to ignore these pests. Exposure to cockroach feces and the body parts of dead roaches over time can even trigger allergies and asthma.
The length of time it takes to rid your home of a cockroach infestation depends largely upon species and size of infestation. Many over-the-counter products homeowners utilize often prove ineffective against a cockroach infestation. These pests are extremely
adaptable and may even be resistant to some home extermination methods.
Workers and soldiers live approximately one to two years. Queen termites may survive for over a decae under optimal climate conditions.
Workers are responsible for gathering and feeding the colony members, maintaining the nest, and caring for young. Soldiers protect the termite colony using their large mandibles to fend off predators. Reproductives are the only sexually mature members
of the colony, aside from queens and kings. Read more about termite colonies.
Mating Flight
The life cycle of the termite begins with a mating flight, wherein swarming winged reproductive males and females leave established colonies and procreate. After fertilization, winged termites land and shed their wings, going on to form new colonies.
These insects then become the king or queen termites of their newly established colonies. The queen and king termites are at the center of the termite life cycle and are responsible for reproduction.
Eggs
After the fertilized queen lays her eggs, they hatch into pale white larvae.
Molting
Eggs hatch into larvae and molt (shed their exoskeletons) to develop into workers, soldiers, primary reproductives and secondary reproductives. A nymph is a young termite that is going through molts to become a reproductive.
The termite growth process begins with a process called molting. First, a termite develops a soft exoskeleton under its current, hard exoskeleton. Then, once the termite has reached maturity, its outermost skeleton splits open, and the new exoskeleton
enlarges and hardens. This molting process continues throughout a termite’s life cycle based on the colony’s needs.
Larvae
Over the course of several molts, these larvae grow to assume a role in one of the three termite colony castes: workers, soldiers and reproductive termites, also known as alates.