Orange Oil for Termites

Orange oil is something that is extracted from peels from oranges. It is mainly made up of a chemical called d-limonene, which is a natural insecticide. This is toxic to insects, but has a very low toxicity to mammals. A lot of companies have started promoting it as a natural way to get rid of termites - they will inject orange oil into the wood of your house, and use it as an alternative to fumigation (since you don't have to move out to do it).

Orange oil does kill termites on contact. However, it's a questionable remedy for actually getting rid of a colony. There have been no published studies proving that it's effective as a termite remedy. One of the things people are concerned about is that it is organic and tends to lose its effectiveness rapidly - unlike many pesticides, it can't just sit there for a year and keep killing insects. If you don't get the entire colony in one go (and kill the queen), they'll be back. And that's hard to do because they don't all live in the wood. With subterranean termites (the most common type) they live underground as well.

The only published study I could find showed that orange oil was highly effective if you stuck a bunch of termites into a container with it. But if you actually put it into a model of a wall, it killed very few of them. It was even less effective in the ground, because it was basically gone after three weeks. The current verdict in my opinion is that orange oil can be useful when combined with other methods - but I wouldn't rely on it as the sole way to try to kill them off.

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Sources and Useful Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_oil

http://www.redding.com/news/2007/dec/01/pass-on-orange-oil-for-termites/

http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=203141

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