European Hornet damage

[chickenlittle]

Note: I initially thought this was twig girdlers but have edited the title
Anyone else have damage from twig girdlers? I've noticed damage on a few trees that looks like it although I've not seen the beetle. Here is a really nice 2 year old Kandil Sinap apple tree that is almost completely girdled around the central leader in 2 spots. This one in the photo is about 3 ft up, still connected on the back side, and another spot another foot higher. You can see limb at the bottom left is girdled too next to the leader. This is a 10 foot tall tree that I t-budded in 2015. My understanding is the larvae might still be in the tree and could hollow it out in the spring. The recommendations I see are to prune off a limb below the girdling and burn it. This is the central leader so I'd have to top a tree that otherwise has done quite well. Even if I do top it, I suppose it would likely be taller by next fall than it is now.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

I was just out to my orchards with a logger and we noticed girdling up high and scratching like you show. Culprit is porcupine. The next day I found one in one of my wild apple trees eating away at the branches. This one was small and ended up with a bad fall from the tree to his demise....maybe he ate too much. But seriously I had quite a bit of porcupine damage on about 4 or 5 trees

 

[chickenlittle]

After some more online looking, I think this is the work of European hornets. Apparently they use the bark in making nests. They are huge, like a giant yellow jacket. I was not familiar with them before this year. I saw a lot of them hollowing out my apples last fall. All that would be left was the skin. My dad brought one in to show my mother but it still had a hornet inside the apple - Surprise!

So that is good news. I won't prune anything that isn't fully girdled and see how it does.

 

[Bill]

I have those things bad around the house. They fly at night so if I leave my shop door open with the lights on they are attracted to it. The place looks scary with 10 of those jumbo jets flying around.

Lots of how to traps on YouTube but they dont really do anything because the queen just kicks out more drones. Do a YouTube search on killing them with frontline for dogs. 3 drops in a can of cat food and they take it back to the nest and it kills the queen.

I've actually had better luck using fruit. They love them some watermelon! :)

 

[Apple Junkie]

The culprit identified, and judgement at hand, it doesn’t get any better than that.

I don’t think I have seen any evidence of this hornet, but if I do see the tell-tale signs, I’ll know who is to blame, and how to solve the problem. Thanks for the info Chicken, Bill.

 

[chickenlittle]

Follow-up report after checking my orchard over the weekend. Saw a huge hornet fly by while we were sitting on the front porch. Despite the couple half girdled spots, my Kindal Sinap apple tree looks to be doing pretty well. I pruned it pretty hard and it looks to be doing ok. But, the top/central leader broke out of my Honeycrisp last week in a storm. Upon inspection, the spot the central leader busted was half girdled last year by a hornet. It should still produce a nice first crop of apples on the rest of the tree and I'll have to figure out how to prune next winter.

I already had topped a Redfree tree after finding borer hole in its central leader. It might have been ok if I left it but was afraid it was still in their chewing away. I did not find the borer but it had bored about 6" from the hole. For that tree, I was able to bend another limb up to get new central leader going.

 

[Native Hunter]

Man that is one heck of a bummer. It seems like every time we turn around there is some new threat to our fruit trees. It makes a guy want to give up. Sorry to see that and hope your trees grow out of having to be topped.

 

[mikmaze]

I like the idea of catfood and frontline....... and keep a bad mitten racquet handy.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I've seen those E. hornets and they are HUGE !! There's an Asian hornet in this country now too that's bigger and nastier. They've attacked and killed people in Asia.
Nice, huh ???

 

[Bill]

I like the idea of catfood and frontline....... and keep a bad mitten racquet handy.

Just put it out so a cat can’t get it. Front line is Deadly to cats. I’ve mixed it with fruit too. Those European hornets love fruit. Like I said watermelon is a favorite. Dey love dem some watermelon!