Your suggestion to contact an entymologist was not as easy a procedure
as I had anticipated. Entymologists are hard to reach and often want
a fee for their service. I did conduct a few google searches and
found a likely candidate.. My best guess now is that these are the
over wintering eggs of the European red mite, a well known pest that
attacks apples and other furits.

See
http://tfpg.cas.psu.edu/part2/part22bl.htm

http://tfpg.cas.psu.edu/insects/european_red_mite1.jpg

The picture of the eggs looks just like what I observed, however the
eggs I observed were located on and around the apple stem and in the
depression around the remnants of the flower. According to the
literature the mite eggs are found on the rough bark near the buds on
the trees and the mites feed on the leaves. So this discrepancy adds
a great note of uncertainty.

Of course the mites themselves never read the literature and I could
not examine the tree from which the apple was harvested . ;-))

I have not found any more instances of the same pest on subsequent
purchases of apples. Unfortunately, I washed away the evidence and
ate the apples.

Aaron

On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 20:29:07 GMT, Roger Whitehead
wrote:

In article , Aaron wrote:
I have sent an email with the url to a specialist.

Please let us know what he says. I imagine quite a few people here are
curious about them, too. I know I am. 8-)

Roger