Bugs are killing our sugar maple trees

For the last several years I have been noticing that the tops in our maples have been dieing off, and eventually killing what were healthy trees. The top limbs die and then the woodpeckers show up.
The first pic is a maple in my back yard. The center top core of the tree is dead, and outer limbs that leaved out are now dieing. The sugar maples seam to be the only species being affected. All summer, something has been foraging on the leaves.
I have been cutting my firewood and found these critters deep in the center of the blocks that I am splitting.
The critters that came out of the blocks are about 1-2" long, with an equal wing span. The bugs are still imature and either in worm form or developed, but can't fly yet. They seam to be intombed there, as there is no hole for them to crawl out, and no sign of how they got inbedded so deeply in the blocks of wood.
Can anyone identify these critters?
Our extension agent is coming here this afternoon to collect some of the critters and send them to the forestry lab.
Loren, the Acg.

That would be bad.

In the 70s this area was elm central, we had over 50% elm trees for our shade and grove trees.

Dutch Elm. We've had 2 rounds of it, not many elm left. I got one big old gal in the grove yet, don't know how it has made it through.

Now there are many Ash as that was the go to replacement, but...

Emerald Ash Borer. It isn't here, but it is in the state so only a matter of time.

That leaves versions of Maple as about the only thing lining the streets around here.

Gonna look mighty bare if something wipes out maples. The non conformists that put in a few ironwood, hackberry, and so on will be sitting nice.

Paul

The holes in the leaves indicate some kind of leaf borer or worm that is feeding off the leaves. The other insects are unrelated to the leaf problem. They are often found in dead trees but maybe after the fact,I have encountered them and the larvae when cutting and splitting firewood.

I was surprised at the emerald ash borer's killing trees - I've never seen anything that kills all the trees. In my inlaws yard, about 20 ash trees were killed. I never thought a pest would have a 100% kill rate.

They are a variety of "soft-tail" hornets. I can't remember their name at the moment, but the "stinger" on their posterior is used to lay eggs in the wood of the tree. I also recall that they are not too aggressive & don't sting when angered..... they bite! Soooo..... picking one up to check it out would be at your own discretion. I would recommend not doing so just after you eat a turkey sandwich, though.

Mike

That seems to be a national epidemic.Here in Colorado,we are looseing MILLIONS of acres of pine forest to spruce and pine bark beetle.According to foresters,the prolonged drought and warmer winters is causeing it.Trees are stressed due to dryness,and the warm temps are not killing off the summers bugs.Aspen are also dying 'Sudden Aspen Death'.No seems to know why.

I have dug those out of wood at a farm east of here, and have some photos somewhere of the exact same insect, big ole nasty wasp like insect.

I am losing some maple in the old farmstead, might be similar, hard to say, so are some neighbors, they seem to be of the same type of maple too, other species nearby, seem well. I don't believe I know my maple species all that well anyway, do know the hard from soft trees here on this place, as I have cut and split some of each, soft ones get hammered by weather events and can self destruct by splitting down the trunk.

Hopefully the extension agent can help figure it out.

Some reason the pic of the worm stage didn't post.
Loren

I really hate that, not just for the many ways in which this is a tragedy, but also because your syrup is delicious and I was intending to place another order with you in the spring.

We lost all our Elm trees about 10 years back from dutch elm disease. The past 5 years the Ash have been dieing off from the ash bore. The ash bore however burrowes in between the bark and canbium layer and does it's damage in the outer perimiter of the trees, and you can see their boreing trails about the size of a pencil led everywhere. These critters are deep into the heartwood of the maples with no visible trails in or out. They seam to be in a pocket that is hollowed out in the shape of their body.
The pic is of a 60'plus Ash tree that has been dead for the last year. We have many like this with only one or two live limbs at the top now, and they will probably not leaf out next year.
Loren

These critters are penetrating and killing healthy trees near the tops. They are also deep in the core wood of very solid dead blocks of wood.
Several years back the North East had a tent catipiller epidemick which totally stripped the foliage from all trees. Many didn't survive from that. I can't say if this is a residual problem from back then, but what ever is eating the leaves is much more selective in how much of the leaf they eat.
Loren

Our Michigan Farm Newspaper just had an article saying be on the lookout for signs of a 'new' beetle. It is in the eastern states now and Ohio. Called Asian Longhorned beetle. Says 134000 trees and counting. It bores into the tissue, larvae borrows deep into heartwood. It is a large black beetle with two long 'antennae'.
www.asianlongnornedbeetle.com

I believe what you are looking at is a wood wasp or horn tail. I have a pretty nice woodlot on the place so I follow the trends in invasive insects. This is a native species if I remember correctly and lays it's eggs in trees that are already dying. So while it might appear that the insect is killing the tree, they are more like maggots feeding on the corpse. Being native, not likely it is going to wipe out a native tree species either. HTH, lots more if you surf for it.

Think you need to look further for the cause of your tree deaths. I will tell you that it is my understanding that sugar maples do not live the longest. Most of the old ones on our farm are dying off from natural causes. If you have younger trees on the place that look healthy, could be you have no problem at all.
Horntail

Some of the real old elm trees, we lost in the 70's, but somewhere in between then and 30 some odd years back, there was some nice re-growth, this place was left to overgrow and recently, within the last few years, all those elm are dying off, might be dutch elm disease (D.E.D.) or something else, as I am aware these is another cause of this. I hate to see it, as some of the trees came up in nice places, they are a really picturesque species to look at, grow relatively fast and with the timing, the ones in prominent places are of use and enjoyment! Now I suppose I may see another round of them given my age, but I would have liked to see these keep going. Some locations you wish another species came up.

I have a dozen more to cut and then some right now. Early last fall I cut as many live but dying, and or dead ones as I could find to help the situation, a few have been spared. I have really nice young one next to a 3 tier scaffold stand, nice cover, shades the entire background, stand, hope like heck it misses that one and another really amazing one at the end of a field, its one that has many more limbs than the ones you see that are tall with a few main limbs and wide canopy.

The only thing you can do with these is get the injection rig from the Elm Reasearch Institute, and inject them with fungicide, preferably in the spring time when the sap rises, and before its been effected, if the tree has already "flagged" meaning a branch up top that has yellowed some leaves, I believe at that point you only have a 50% chance. There is more to it with pruning, I injected an old one, that did flag, took 50+ gallons of the solution up, sadly it did not work, 4'-0" trunk on it too, was about 100 years old if I recall.

I have not priced any of the supplies for this, its relatively simple, harness is tubing with taps you drill and set, like for maple sap, you then mix a batch of solution, and place that in a pressure tank with a schrader valve, then pressurize with your compressor and watch it go up, I should have kept up on this and protected my favorite trees, see if it helps. The set up I bought in the late 90's was $300 shipped with 5 gallons of fungicide concentrate.

I've been seeing Maples die-out in the top/center here in MN for the past several years too. Many are very young trees too... that otherwise looked healthy until the middle section dies.

Wonder if it's the same critter causing it here.

Dave,
You are exactly correct about the horntail wasps. The leaf eaters appear to be the problem, and I have looked at the leaves closely all summer and have yet to find what is eating them. As I said, the extension agent was here today and he and others will be looking close into what is eating the foliage, on the sugar maples only. Those critter have not bothered any other species of lefe bearing trees in the woods. We don't think the wasps are the issue, at this moment.
Loren

We have a swamp white oak that's hanging on for dear life this summer too. Planted it 12 years ago and it's been doing great till this year. The leaves came half out and then it stalled. Marilyn found bugs crawling on it so she took some of the bugs to a nursery man to be evaluated. He told her the tree needs to be watered, that we've been dry for too long. He also gave her a systemic insecticide to mix with water and pour on the ground under the tree. The tree will take up the insecticide and hopefully the bugs will die. I did the insecticide and then watered it well a couple of times. That was last June and the tree has been hanging in there with half sized leaves, but no leaves have died. I watered it a couple of times since then but it's been raining enough so I haven't had to water again. It's a 20' tree so we hate to lose it. Jim

A lot of long needled conifers are dying around this area have been dying for the past couple of years, probably because of the dryness. The Cedar is the only native conifer in for this area and the Cedars have been doing just fine, only they grow wild and no one wants them. Jim

We had a bad epidemic of Asian long horn Beetles in the Toronto area, they were thought to have come in on pallets from China. The CFIA took over and cut down all the maples in the area and put a ban on moving wood out of the area. They believe they have solved the problem. The Emerald ash borer is a diffrent problem, nothing seems to stop it. They cut a 10 k swath from Georgin bay to lake Erie, and the Beetle jumped it