Not good

[toquin]

18140 Small hard maple in one of my bushes.

[tcross]

maple sugar borer... I got em pretty good in my neck of the woods!

[crashmjsapman]

Tell me. How do you get rid of them? Alot of young trees have this happening.

[DrTimPerkins]

Cut them down, get it out of the woods, and burn. Secondarily, thin your woods. SMB is more problematic if the trees are under stress. The biggest stress is likely to be the forest is too dense and needs thinning.

[lyford]

Do these insects prefer sugar maples over soft maples, as the name sugr maple borer implies?

[tcross]

i believe they do prefer sugar maples vs other maples, however I have two red maples that got bored into a few years back. they are still up and appear to be very healthy. however they could be dying slowly form the inside out?

[wally]

almost exclusively feed in sugar maple. very rare in any other. truthfully, i've never observed it in anything but sugar maple, and i look at 100s of thousands of trees every year.

treatment is to remove weak trees and those already infested with smb. exactly as dr perkins suggests.

[CampHamp]

Taking out all trees that have a maple borer scar seems extreme to me.

[DrTimPerkins]

You needn't take all affected trees out...especially the trees that had some damage but have recovered. Trees that have SMB scars will very often live and produce sap for quite some time, but are more prone to breakage in wind or ice storms and heavy winds. Key thing is to take out the trees with currently active beetles and thin out the area to relieve stress on the remaining trees.

[WestfordSugarworks]

how can you tell if they're active? we have seen some trees in our woods that have damage but have recovered very well. We just leave them. Often the damaged area is small and the tree heals over the wound.

[DrTimPerkins]

Rather difficult, but look for subtle signs of activity like frass (wood shavings and bug poop) around the base of the tree, fresh exit holes, woodpecker activity on trees.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Rather difficult, but look for subtle signs of activity like frass (wood shavings and bug poop) around the base of the tree, fresh exit holes, woodpecker activity on trees.

Thank you.