CHERRY PESTS 
Nature and Extent of Injury 
The real injury caused by these beetles 
seems to be almost, if not entirely, second- 
ary. Many of our orchardists upon find- 
ing sick and dying trees with the shot 
hole borer working in them have attribut- 
ed the cause to the beetles. 
By visiting many of these places and 
explaining to the orchardist the true con- 
ditions, we have convinced them that the 
trees were suffering from some fungus 
disease or improper soil condition. 
The beetles may help to kill the trees 
and in some cases might cause the death 
of trees which would have recovered from 
the disease had the beetles not been pres- 
ent. In the case of young trees, only one 
or two years old, this could readily hap- 
pen, as the burrows extend almost en- 
tirely around the trees and close to the 
inner bark. (For example see Fig. 2.) 
Fig. 2. Burrow in 
The Shot Hole Borer. 
young cherry tree and adults in hibernation 
197 
In the summer, after the beetles have 
completed the burrows, such trees can 
easily be broken off at the point of in- 
jury. 
Life History 
The winter is spent in the adult stage. 
Both males and females hibernate in the 
burrows from July and August until the 
following spring. They emerge during 
the last of March and first of April and 
migrate to sick and dying trees, where 
the burrows of that season are to be 
made. The entrance hole is usually made 
about a bud scar or in some roughened 
place. The beetles have no trouble in 
picking out the sick trees. 
The Adult 
The adult bores directly through the 
bark and into the wood tissue for a quar- 
ter of an inch or more and then begins 
the construction of branch burrows ex- 
tending at right angles to the main bur- 
row and with the grain of the wood. 
These channels are all about one-twelfth 
inch in diameter and from three-quarters 
to two and a quarter inches in length. 
The Egg 
The eggs may be found from the second 
week in April until the middle of June. 
When first deposited they are oblong in 
shape and pearly white in color. They 
measure 1 mm, in length by 0.06 mm. in 
diameter and will stand considerable 
rough handling. There seems to be no 
regularity in the egg deposition, as there 
may be from one to seven in each cham- 
ber of the burrow, placed without discrim- 
ination. 
The burrows are not all made at once 
but are completed in sections, the female 
spending her time meanwhile between de- 
positing eggs and resting near the en- 
trance to the burrow. When the first 
branch chamber is finished the mother 
beetle deposits in it from one to seven 
eggs, and the fungus food of the larvae 
having been arranged for, she closes the 
entrance with frass and pays no more 
attention to it. The entire burrow is 
usually completed by the middle of May 
and then the mother beetle returns to the 
entrance where she stands guard until 
the following winter. 
