Hello! We need help! We have a lovely matured Magnolia tree in our back yard and one not so mature in the front yard. They both are experiencing trouble. We noticed it late last season and this year it's worse. There is what looks like a black bee/wasps (many) tending some sort of cocoons near the joints. You can certainly hear the low buzz when walking by. These creatures are killing yellow jackets. We keep finding them on the ground near by. My husband has sprayed some insecticide and it killed some but really only quieted them down for about 24hrs. We have quite a lot of trees, different kinds but this is only happening to the two Magnolias. HELP!!! We have two dogs and need to be careful with what we're spraying. My husband wants to just cut them down but the old one is so lovely. It did blossom this year but when that was done these black bees/wasps came back to do their thing. Any info you can give would be great. Thank you.
Wasps in general are useful for killing pest insects, I would leave any that do not attack you alone.
Too bad you aren't registered. I too would love to see a photo and see if we can help. Also let us know where you live. Newt
I'm not sure if you're still following this question, but I began looking into exactly the same thing when my magnolia started attracting wasps and bees. During the winter, I noticed the same type of nodules (cocoons) on the surface of the bark that you mentioned. After a bit of online searching I came up with what I believe to be the solution. The nodules are magnolia scales, an insect that during the female active cycle (in June/July following flower bloom) begins to cause a sweet sap to be produced in over-abundance. The solution I found was to spray with summer or dormant horticultural oil or a standard chemical treatment. I found this information at http://www.treehelp.com/trees/magnolia/magnolia-scale.asp and it includes pictures of the scales. I’m sure they want to sell you the products, but you can probably pick up the same at your local store. There may be other treatments, but this is the only one I found. Hope this helps. Chris
Hi Chris, Great bunch of folks at TreeHelp.com and they do like to sell their products. I post on their tree forum frequently. :) To add to that, dormant oil is what is used for the magnolia scale and it can be purchased at many places. Thanks for sharing that. Newt