The alates fly from the colony at a certain time of the year to start new colonies. Among the wood inhabiting termites, there are various specialists such as rotten wood termites, damp wood termites and dry wood termites. Dry wood termites can be very serious pests of houses and furniture. All wood inhabiting termites produced fecal pellets. If you have dry wood termites in your house you are likely to see the coarse sand-like pellets long before you discover the termites themselves.
Most termites are the subterranean type and are able to tunnel in the soil.
The ability to tunnel allows them to find many separate pieces of wood, on which to feed. Since they are not limited to one piece of wood, their colonies can be much bigger than those of wood-inhabiting species. Usually their colonies number from hundreds of thousands to several million. The mother of the colony is usually quite grossly pregnant. These mothers are the mothers of all mothers, so to speak.