You may have heard of termite mounds here in Africa (they also have them in South America and elsewhere). These things are harder than cement and usually the termites build them pretty high (sometimes 4 ft. or higher). Inside you find a queen- or in the case of the newly forming termite mound in my yard, 4 queens. The termites are about 1/4 inch large, but the queens are about 1 to 1.5 inches long...
When my guard Peter dug up the mound so they couldn't make one of the towers in my yard, even he was surprised to find 4 queens. (And in this photo, the other smaller thing at the head of the third queen is the male who helps make all those millions of babies...) Yikes.
The only thing to keep them from rebuilding was to pour gasoline on the area and light it... poof- no more termites in my yard.
FYI- some people eat termites (the regular ones) and Peter told me that sometimes brave people even fry up and eat the queens as a delicacy. Oh, my. Yum??? (Gag!)