EAB

Speaking of bees being confused, a whole bloody swarm of them decided my garden was a good home this morning and settled into an old upside down plastic trash can I use for for a small planter box platform. It has a fractured bottom that allowed the queen and subsequent swarm to settle in and make themselves nice and comfortable.

But my garden's too small for such a large swarm to occupy, so I called a bee keeping friend of mine with a huge property whose wife is a member of the local exotic plant society.

He just now came over with a bee box, smoker, and bee suit. Bob transferred the queen from the trash can to the bee box after smoking them. He left the bee box in my garden, and will return on Thursday night to take the box back to his property where they can live long happy lives collecting pollen from his wife's hundreds of exotic plants.

All's well that ends well for my temporary buzzing guests and their queen.

Jomoco
 
Just now figured out how to post pics from my IPad.

BeeBox.jpg


jomoco
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmLA9opPHzg

sorry for the low quality shaky sideways video shot with my camera phone while we were finishing up a job on a typical detroit street. Interesting to me the survival rate of ash trees. The main blow of the infestation was between 2003-2005. between those years it is about all I did was remove ash trees. Some of them in retrospect may have survived. Everyone said it was either cut down or inject. I dont believe that to be necessarily the case anymore as I have seen many neglected ash trees still doing their thing.

None of these trees received treatment. I will be doing a few more videos like this, hopefully get some help editing. I will also post pictures of some larger, mature ash trees that I see around that have survived without treatment. there are a few around. It is interesting because I feel like the death rate of Ashes on this particular street might reflect what nature intends for the proper balance of one particular species to a given area. Maybe?

Survival is a tricky word as well because there is a difference between trees that are stone dead, trees that have maintained sucker growth, and trees that have leaves still at the tips.

Ash trees have not been wiped completely off the map by EAB. A catastrophic event for sure but it is interesting to me how these vigorous trees are fighting back.
 
[ QUOTE ]
My regional outfit (the Northern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service) has an active research program in EAB, as do universities within the affected areas. There is a lot out there online, but you could check out these NRS websites:
http://nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/eab/
http://nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/eab/local-resources/downloads/EAB_potential.pdf

To your questions: all Fraxinus species within the range of this introduced pests are hosts and all are killed. As with lots of borer pests, having a high density of potential host trees in a given area causes the most problems, in rural areas or in cities and towns.
Within the apparent native range in Asia, EAB has been reported on some species of Juglans and others. In the US, it has only been reported to reproduce on Fraxinus, although other tree species might support unsustained feeding.

Galleries are usually on the lower bole, but I don't think that is an absolute restriction. I don't know of successful treatments of infested trees.
As with other insect pests, mild winters favor higher populations and greater spread. Some research within my unit is working on nailing down the critical temperatures for EAB physiology.

I'm no EAB expert, but those are the answers I have.

[/ QUOTE ]

So is this off?

http://joa.isa-arbor.com/articles.asp?JournalID=1&VolumeID=38&IssueID=3

Paper 1.

I only bring this up because I was reading the bee post.

IMO we go to great lengths to scare people about things we do not understand fully. For what reason? Billions of dollars of cost scare me even. Would the money and time spent on this paper been better utilized understanding the problem?
 
I have no issue with the McKenney and others 2012 article in the above link. To recap, the above JoA article gives a an estimated potential loss dollar value from EAB as being one-tenth of previously published dollar values. These are all model estimates, so they are all based on the assumptions of initial conditions and scope to of the population. The above reference is for street trees in Canada that could be hit by EAB. Previous, higher estimates in the US were for rural and wildland forests as well as urban and community trees in the US. Just that could account for a large amount of spread. The Canadian article indicates a lot of uncertainty about the density of ash. In the US, I think we may have a better handle on that because of the Forest Inventory and Analysis work by the US Forest Service and the various states.

Also, these estimates all depend on the choice of models which describe the "shape" of both the epidemic and the resulting dollar costs. My quibble with most economic models is that they assume a consistent response, be it linear or nonlinear, as the epidemic progresses. This is rarely true. Sometimes when problems get really bad, the rate of control investment is greatly increased. In other situations, folks might stop control investments and let "nature take its course". Either way, reality deviates from the model.
 
Thanks bing for the vid! For a city with no budget, all options have to be on the table. Reduce and retain, train stump sprouts--change one's parking locations, for sure!

SZ what issues were with that interview? The guy was saying the panic was similar; imo he was not comparing the pests. Are you looking to build or to burn bridges with the muni?

There's some stubborn anti-treament people out there--suburban chicago consultant plans 97% removal of ash, and points to the 3% as evidence of balance in his approach. !

As Dr. Smith notes, modeling and assumptions can be very shaky bases for these longterm decisions. Planners need to get out in the field more and off their dam computers imo.

speaking ofd which...
 
Thanks Jason, I will read those articles. I want to use eb, but only if I am certain it is not a horrible thing for the environment.
 
I'm inclined to be lazy and take your word for it. After looking into it a bit I'd agree with what you said about az not being effective.

I read the first article that you linked, there where some contrary points to the the epa article, I'm confused....
 
Such as? I dont doubt there are contrary points but the stuff shouldnt be used as much as it is. Goes for many other systemics too.

Went to a Rainbow product field day when their version of EB came out. I believe they experimented using it on lindens which made me crazy. Talk about a major bee tree!
 
I can't copy and paste from the epa article, but if you read pages 11, 12 and 13, those statements raise concern for me. The first article that you linked-

"Similar studies have not been conducted with emamectin benzoate, which is broken down rapidly by microbial activity and sunlight. Because of its short residual activity on the surface of leaves, it is considered a biorational insecticide compatible with integrated pest management programs, including biological control. These characteristics suggest that environmental impacts will be negligible as emamectin benzoate is released from decomposing leaves. Regulatory agencies concluded that foliar applications of emamectin benzoate to vegetable crops will have no adverse effects on ground or surface water, birds, mammals, fish, or aquatic invertebrates when used as directed."

Perhaps it all boils down to the last phrase "when used as directed."

I agree, chemicals are used well in excess and I do not want to be a part of the problem. I suppose if eb is sprayed onto edible crops it should be fine to inject into a tree. I am still not 100% convinced it's the way to go.

I know that you are a responsible person and more informed on the matter than myself. There also seem to be many other responsible people using eb. Maybe I should just go with the flow, I just want to make sure that I know as much as I can about the potential hazards.
 
It's related to abamectin which is also a pretty short-lived product when sprayed. Dont know if EB is sprayed anymore or not. Most flowers are still to be avoided.

It long life inside a plant does give me some pause but 4% active ingredient in a 10" tree @ 10 ml per inch yields 4 ml of active ingredient distributed in the living mass off the tree. Doesnt seem like a hell of a lot.
 
I can also tell you I would recommend trying to save the big nice ash trees over every customer that calls with a few to one ash. Many folks decide to stop treating after a few years.
 
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