"beccabunga" wrote in message
...

'Zootal[_3_ Wrote:
;797955']I have a large old apple tree in my back yard. I'm guessing
it's ~100 years
old based on the neighborhood and the number of growth rings on a
smaller
tree near it that I had to cut down a few years ago. Several years ago,

someone butchered it - they cut all of the main branches back to about
15
feet from the trunk. Their reason - they didn't like how it sprawled
all
over. I don't know how badly this shocked the tree. I've been gently
pruning
it every year, trying to remove the vertical suckers and open up the
crown,
with a fairly good rate of sucess. This year is it loaded with hundreds
of
apples. So, anyhow, my questions

1) I noticed this hole on one of the branches. The opening is a bit
more
then in inch in diameter, and you can see wood shavings that have
fallen out
of the hole. What would make a hole like this in a tree? I can't see
anything in the hole, and don't know how deep it goes - I don't really
want
to stick my fingers in it :-)

http://tinyurl.com/3qv8b5
http://tinyurl.com/4m7vg4
It appears to have bored into dead wood, and by location and size I would
suspect carpenter bee. They are readily viewable "hanging" around their
bores. If the hole hooks through the center of the limb, I would say
definitely carpenter bee.