AusBonsai

I was checking one of my trees in the ground today & got a little excited on seeing a telltale trail. (I have followed it with an orange line to make it easier to see) It goes up & round the front of a branch & over into a rotten hollow that has formed since being chopped many many years ago. Finding a spot in the antworks to break the shell & check, sure enough its white ants... On finding them most would be rushing for the pest control, not I, they will only eat deadwood & not affect the overall health of the tree. In general I have found white ants will go for harder woods, while black ants will take up home in soft woods that suffer from dry rot. Ths is a sample of the handy work of black ants on an ash tree I collected a few years ago.

Cool Natures own carving tools
so long as they do not eat the house you are gold
Ken

Plenty of timber in the yard for the buggers to eat and check the house stumps regularly for trails...if found they are hit with the hard stuff before they get a hold.

White ants always build a protective tunnel to connect them with the earth. Black ants move into existing gaps & hollow the insides without breaking the outer edges of timber. These differ from black ants that feed & farm scales etc.

Your a brave man. imagine what you could do with those borer bugs from europe...id be still worried about having white ants near anything to do with timber...lol