Mobile doesn’t really have a termite season. It has three of them, stacked back to back from late winter into early fall. The International Residential Code puts the Gulf Coast corridor in its heaviest termite probability zone — “very heavy” — and anyone who has lived through a May evening in Midtown when the streetlights fill with pale wings knows the code map isn’t exaggerating.

Here’s how the year actually unfolds on the ground in Mobile and across the Bay in Baldwin County:

• February through April — native Eastern subterranean swarms. These are the early birds. On the first warm, still afternoons after a rain, dark-bodied swarmers boil up out of the soil in daylight — off stumps, landscape timbers, and sometimes straight out of a baseboard or tub surround. A sunny 75-degree Saturday after a Friday soaker is classic swarm weather in Spring Hill and West Mobile.
• May through June — Formosan swarm season, Mobile’s signature event. Formosan subterranean termites came through the port decades ago and settled in hard. They swarm at dusk, in huge numbers, and they steer toward light — porch fixtures, ballfield banks, gas-station canopies, the glow behind your blinds. On the right humid, windless evening, whole neighborhoods from Oakleigh to Tillman’s Corner watch it happen at once. Formosan colonies run into the millions of individuals, several times the size of native colonies, which is why the operators here take a May swarm on a house seriously.
• Late summer — drywood termite flights. Smaller, quieter night swarms, usually July into September. Drywood termites don’t need soil contact; they set up in attic framing, eaves, and furniture. Fewer wings, easier to miss, and a completely different treatment conversation than the subterranean species.

Why the calendar matters: a swarm is not a random bug event. Swarmers are the winged reproductives a colony releases only after it has matured — which typically means the parent colony has been feeding on wood somewhere nearby for years before you saw a single wing. The swarm is the announcement, not the beginning.

One practical note from every swarm season on record: when the Formosans fly, the phone lines fill up. Termite operators across Mobile County book solid within days of the first big dusk flight. If you saw swarmers in February or March, calling then — instead of waiting for the May rush — usually means a faster appointment and a calmer conversation. Timing is always set by the operator and varies with their schedule.

A swarm inside the house is the serious signal. Swarmers emerging from a baseboard, a window frame, a bathroom wall, or the gap around a tub almost always mean the colony is in or directly under the structure. Termites emerging indoors are trying to get outside to mate — they came from somewhere inside your walls or slab. That’s the call to make the same day you see it.

A swarm outdoors is a nearby-colony notice, not a verdict. Swarmers rising off a stump, a woodpile, or the flowerbed mulch mean a mature colony lives within a short distance — sometimes in the yard, sometimes under the neighbor’s shed. Your house isn’t necessarily infested, but on the central Gulf Coast, “a mature colony within fifty feet” is exactly the situation a licensed operator should evaluate before spring turns to summer.

Wings on windowsills count as evidence even weeks later. Swarms are short — often twenty minutes — and they happen while you’re at work. What’s left behind is a scatter of shed wings on sills, in spiderwebs, in the garage door track. Don’t sweep them all away: termite wings are evidence an operator can read at a glance. Leave a few where they are, photograph the scatter, and save a pinch in a bag.

And before you call anyone, run the three-point check that separates termite swarmers from winged ants — carpenter ants fly here all summer and get misreported constantly:

• Waist. Termite swarmers are thick-bodied straight through, like a grain of rice. Winged ants have a pinched, hourglass waist.
• Wings. Termites carry four wings of equal length, longer than the body, and they shed them easily — that’s why you find wings without insects. Ant forewings are visibly longer than their hindwings, and they stay attached.
• Antennae. Termite antennae are straight strings of beads. Ant antennae bend at an elbow.

Color helps too: native subterranean swarmers are dark brown to black; Formosan swarmers are a pale yellow-brown and fly at dusk. If your photos show pale swarmers around a porch light in late May, the operator already knows half the story.

• “Which species swarmed?” Native subterranean, Formosan, and drywood termites take three different treatment plans at three different price points. The wings and the timing tell a licensed operator which one they’re looking at — make them say it out loud.
• “Where’s the colony evidence?” A swarm plus mud tubes, damaged wood, or frass is a diagnosis. A quote with no findings behind it is a red flag. Ask to see what they found, or photos of it.
• “Why this treatment and not the other one?” Liquid soil treatments and bait systems both have their place on the Gulf Coast; drywood problems may need targeted wood treatment instead. A good operator explains the why, not just the price.
• “What are the re-treat terms?” Termite work in this climate usually comes with a renewable agreement — what happens if activity returns, what the annual renewal covers, and what voids it. Get it in writing.
• “What’s your ADAI license number?” Every legitimate Alabama termite operator carries one, and the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industries’ Pesticide Management Section — (334) 240-7240, Montgomery — can confirm it. Pros expect the question.