• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Fires/Accidents/Disasters / There’s trouble in the former capital of Iowa City, and that’s trouble with a T, which stands for termites

There’s trouble in the former capital of Iowa City, and that’s trouble with a T, which stands for termites

February 28, 2003 By admin

Forget the Cyclones and all of those Big Ten rivals. The University of Iowa’s top foe at the moment is the tiny but mighty termite. U-of-I entomologist Bob Setter says the battle with the wood-eating bugs is ongoing and is costing the Iowa City institution about $170,000 a year.Setter says “We have termites all across campus, depending on where you look. The more you look, the more you can find.” Setter was recruited from Canada three years ago to help the U-of-I take on termites and develop a plan to save several threatened buildings on campus. He says they’re -not- using traditional chemicals like neurotoxins or termiticides, but other newer products. Setter says the weapons being used are very target-specific and are ingested by the termites and spread among the colony to kill the reproductive components of the colony. He says the kings, queens, soldiers and workers all share the same food source and the colony collapses. Setter says there is a large colony under the Engineering building, just across from the U-of-I’s Main Library and many tens of thousands of books, which has him concerned. Setter says there’s a lot of “reimmigration,” meaning once a colony is wiped out, new termites march right in, sometimes within a month, sometimes several years later, but they keep coming back. He says Old Capitol, perhaps the U-of-I’s most-beloved building and one of the oldest on campus, is free of termites.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Featured Stories

Exhibit features lesser known works of Grant Wood

Testing finds 21 new CWD cases in deer

It may become a crime in Iowa to use fake urine in workplace drug tests

February trending 18 degrees below average temperature

Iowa House Education Committee votes to end tenure at UI, ISU, UNI

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Iowa’s Jack Nunge lost for the season

Key stretch begins for #9 Iowa

Drake’s Roman Penn lost for the season

Drake’s DeVries named to Naismith watch list

State wrestling opens with limited attendance

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2021 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC