Shot Hole Borer in Roodekrans

I did quite a bit of work in the garden this afternoon, pool maintenance, and repairing of the pool cover was top of my list. While out there in the garden I noticed a dead branch where there shouldn't be dead branches. Investigating I noticed that an entire tree hidden among other trees was mostly dead with little life left. It was then that I noticed several holes in the bark. I went into panic mode. Shot Hole Borer had reached Roodekrans.

The Shot Hole Borer or Euwallacea fornicatus is a terrible plague beetle from Southeast Asia that have reached our shores and is devastating the trees in Johannesburg. So far there is no cure to stop these small creatures of Armageddon. This could potentially be one of South Africa's largest ecological tragedies.    

I posted the evidence on a WhatsApp group that has a lot of specialists, and the results came back quickly from Andrew the Chief Horticulturist from the Botanic Gardens just below us, that the culprit was most likely the Xylocopa Carpenter Bees. After further investigations I have to thankfully concur that it is not the Shot Hole Borer but the Carpenter Bees. Yes as far as I can tell the Shot Hole Borer have not reached my garden in Roodekrans, and may it stay that way.

Unfortunately this pest is too small to detect but however you can identify the affected trees. So how do you identify if your tree has the Shot Hole Borer...

• The tree is wilting
• Dead branches
• 1-2mm holes in bark of tree in shotgun like spread
• Sugar like volcanoes at the holes from oozing resin along with wooden powder

Our dead tree had about 5 holes about 8mm in diameter randomly spread in the trunk with no volcano like signs.