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[RazzCicle767]

I have recently found out about keeping termites and am wondering where I can buy them? I tried a while back to catch reproductives and pair them, but had no such luck. I also have zero experience with termites, and didn’t know how to care for them. Anyone know where I could buy a pair or small colonie?
*Colony*

[Nare]

Subterranean termites should be fairly easy to find in the wild in Missouri (see Observations · iNaturalist). You can usually find colonies by flipping logs in the woods. If you see a few workers under a log this often indicates that there are a significant amount in the log too. You can collect many workers by just bringing such a chunk of wood home, although it will often take a good deal of work to break the log down to something portable depending on how hard or soft the wood is. Alternatively, just look for a smaller piece of wood that is occupied.

 

The neat thing about many termites is that in the absence of reproductives, colony members will molt into new reproductives. For subterranean termites, almost any member of the colony has the potential to become a new reproductive. This means you can collect a group of workers and they will eventually turn into a self-sustaining colony. I have found that the more workers you collect, the better the colony does. You will also want a larger setup, as I have found that smaller setups (i.e. test tubes or petri dishes) often struggle to get established with this method.

 

Here's what I recommend: find a termite colony in the wild, and collect several hundred workers (either bring a good piece of wood home or collect workers by splitting the wood and sucking them up with an aspirator). In terms of  your setup, I recommend starting with something like a cheap plastic storage bin you can get from the dollar store. I have used ~1 ft by 2 ft by 8in clear plastic shoe boxes that go for $1.25 CAD apiece. You will want to add about an inch of soil to the bottom of the container, and then you can simply place the wood you collected ontop. The main purpose of soil in this setup is to moderate moisture, so you will want something with decent drainage that won't dry out too quickly. I find potting soil from the backyard works fine. In terms of wood, I have used rotted wood collected from outside, but I have also had success with a footlong segment of old fence post. If you split the post in half along the long axis and then put the two pieces back together, you may be able to encourage the termites to nest in between the two pieces, in which case you can observe them by lifting the top piece off the bottom (but don't do this too often or you'll scare them away).

 

In terms of observability, if you keep the container sitting on a surface, the termites will dig tunnels along the bottom of the container that you can observe when you lift the container and look at the bottom. They will also likely build shelter tubes all around the container. I have had them build shelter tubes out between the lid and the container, but these don't represent a threat to your house and don't really go anywhere. If you get a better fitting lid they will be unable to do this. However I recommend against a completely sealed lid as you will need some degree of airflow.

 

If you want something termitat-like where you can directly observe the termites, I recommend keeping a setup as described above like a "pool" to withdraw termites from and put in more observational setups. In my experience observability and long-term viability are inversely correlated, so the best approach is to stock small observable setups every so often with new workers from a larger source setup. I have some designs for small observable setups on some of my linked pages.
 

In my opinion keeping termites is a bit like keeping a houseplant. The only thing you need to consider is moisture, and the key challenge is not forgetting they exist and allowing them to dry out. If you're gone for months at a time I might recommend maintaining ambient humidity by placing a water test tube in the source bin. Beyond that you will need to replace/add new wood periodically depending on how large (and ravenous) your colony is.

 

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions.