Can use wood chips from chipping trees in brush in your property for mulch? (or will attract termites?)?

We used the chips around our flowers and around our home. The chips do attract ants. The chips can be placed in a pile to rot for a year or so and they make excellent compost. I used an ant spray when I found the ants in the wood chips around our flowers. I also found that the wood chips somehow reproduce and I get things growing in the chips that I did not anticipate.