The King termite assists the queen in creating and attending to the colony during its initial formation. He will continue to mate throughout his life to help increase the colony size. The Queen termite creates the colony by laying eggs and tending to the colony until enough workers and nymphs are produced to care for the colony. She can live for more than ten years and produce hundreds of eggs each year. Colonies can each several million termites with the help of secondary queens who also produce eggs.
Termites have the ability to change from one caste type to another during their immature stages.
This allows the colony to change the proportion of different caste members as the need arises. Both types of termites eat cellulose for nutrition. Cellulose is found in wood and wood products. These winged termites are new kings and queens attempting to establish a new colony. Ant colonies also send swarmers, which have nearly the same appearance as termites, but may be identified upon closer inspection.