Every year, a few evenings after the first proper rains of the wet season, the same thing happens across Bali: thousands of winged insects — locals call them laron — pour out of the ground and swirl around every light. By morning there are drifts of shed wings on terraces and window sills. Most people sweep them up and forget it. That is a mistake, because a swarm is not a random nuisance: it is the one evening of the year when a hidden termite colony makes itself visible. This article explains what the swarm is, how to tell termites from flying ants, and exactly what to check at your villa the next morning.
Why Swarms Happen After the First Rains
A termite colony spends most of the year invisible — underground and inside timber. But once a colony matures (typically after three to five years), it produces winged reproductives whose only job is to fly out, pair up and found new colonies. They need exactly the conditions Bali's first wet-season downpours deliver: soft, moist soil to dig into, high humidity so they do not dry out, and still, warm evenings. That is why the flights cluster in October and November, usually at dusk after an afternoon of heavy rain, and why they so often coincide with the lights going on — swarmers navigate toward light and end up in pools, on terraces and inside open-plan living rooms.
The swarm itself is brief. Almost all swarmers die or are eaten within a day. What matters is what the swarm tells you: somewhere within about 50 metres there is a mature colony large enough to reproduce — and the new pairs that survive are now looking for moist timber and soil around buildings to start the next one.
Flying Termites or Flying Ants?
Winged ants swarm in the same weather, and from a distance they look identical. Pick up one of the dead insects (or photograph a few shed wings) and check three things:
| Feature | Flying termite (laron) | Flying ant |
|---|---|---|
| Waist | Straight, thick body — no pinched waist | Clearly pinched, hourglass waist |
| Wings | Two pairs, all four the same length, shed easily | Front pair longer than back pair |
| Antennae | Straight, like a string of beads | Bent at an angle (elbowed) |
Piles of identical-length shed wings with no insects attached are the classic termite signature — swarmers twist their wings off as soon as they land. If what you found has a pinched waist and elbowed antennae, you have ants, which is a different and much smaller problem.
What the Location of the Swarm Tells You
Where you find swarmers and wings changes the urgency completely:
Swarmers outside in the garden or around street lights: normal Bali. A colony is active somewhere in the neighbourhood — in soil, a dead tree, a neighbour's structure. Your villa is not necessarily affected, but this is the right week to walk the building and check the early signs described in our guide to termite damage signs: mud tubes at wall bases, hollow-sounding timber, frass under beams.
Swarmers emerging inside the villa — from skirting boards, window frames, cracks in walls or floors — are a different matter. Termites do not fly in from far away and then exit through your joinery; an interior emergence means the colony is in or under the building itself, and it is mature. This is the single clearest warning the building will give you all year, and it deserves a professional termite inspection within days, not months.
What to Do the Morning After a Swarm
Photograph before you sweep
Take phone photos of the insects and the wing piles, including where you found them — window sill, bathroom floor, base of a timber post. Location is diagnostic information.
Walk the building edge
Check wall bases, foundation lines and timber posts for the sand-coloured mud tubes subterranean termites build. Check decks, pergolas and any timber touching soil.
Tap suspect timber
Door frames, skirting, exposed beams: solid timber sounds dense, eaten timber sounds papery and hollow. Note anything that changes sound along its length.
Send us the photos on WhatsApp
We give an honest first read from photos — ant vs termite, worrying vs routine — the same day, free, before any talk of treatment.
Why the Weeks After the Swarm Are the Right Time to Act
A swarm means two separate risks. The first is the established colony that produced it — if that is inside your building, every month of delay is more hidden damage, and the cost curve is steep: an early-stage targeted treatment is a fraction of the structural repairs a mature infestation forces (current rates are on our treatment prices page). The second risk is new: surviving pairs from this season's flights are right now founding colonies in moist soil against foundations, in garden timber and under leaky bathrooms. Early in the wet season — before those new colonies establish — is exactly when an inspection and soil treatment deliver the most, which is why we treat October and November as inspection season.
If your villa has had swarmers emerge indoors in past years, or you are buying or managing a property and want certainty rather than hope, book the inspection now rather than waiting for the next flight to confirm what the last one already told you.
Found Wings or Swarmers at Your Villa?
Send photos of the insects, the wings and where you found them — we'll tell you the same day whether it's ants or termites and whether it needs an inspection.
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