Hello,

From the pictures you sent and the absence of any insects, my best guess would be that these are abandoned habitats of ground-nesting insects of bees, carpenter ants, or cicadas. I mention cicadas because the tubes are rather large, and both ground-dwelling bees or carpenter ants are much smaller than cicadas. Also, this is a year for the emergence of Brood X cicadas.

Before you take this as gospel, I would ask another question. Have you looked in the pine trees to see if there is any damage, any crawling or boring insects, yellowing of the needles, dead branches? This information would help for a more definitive diagnosis since no insects were present in the tubes or the underground nests.

I will keep looking for more information. The tubes on the ground are what is puzzling. I’ve ruled out termites, but I cannot rule anything else out yet.

I wanted to get back to you with some answers and not leave you hanging. So if you could respond with information about the pine trees, that would be helpful.



There are a few practical measures you can take to preserve anything you plant now.

The cicadas emerge in either May or June. They stay around for 4-6 weeks, making a lot of noise, mating, and laying eggs before the larvae burrow underground. The egg laying time is the most crucial. If you can get to the eggs before they hatch, you stand a good chance of not suffering major damage.

Cicadas don’t eat trees or branches. The females create slits in the branches where they lay their eggs. The slits may weaken the tree branches and, over a long time, and many invasions, cause the branches to whither and die. But this takes a long time and an overly large emergence of the cicadas.

Once the eggs hatch in the slits in the branches, the larvae burrow underground and attach themselves to grass and tree roots and feed there for 17 years. There are also 13-year cicadas as well as 2-3-year cicadas. Their egg laying is the same.

Cicadas prefer to lay their eggs in branches ¼ to 1/5 inch in diameter. This means that they prefer the following tress: oak, maple, fruit (especially cherry and pear), Hawthorne, redbud, and young trees (newly planted). Because they prefer young trees, I would wait until next year to plant any new trees in your yard. If you have already planted, or have one of the trees named above, you can wrap susceptible branches with mesh netting. Mature trees can sustain cicada damage, young trees cannot.

If you see a lot of cicadas in your area followed by splits in tree branches, prune the branches off the tree within 6-10 weeks of seeing the insects. The closer to 6 weeks the better. That means you must be vigilant about inspection. If you prune the branches off, the eggs are removed prior to hatching and will not burrow underground.

Cicadas rarely deposit their eggs on shrubs or flowers unless there is a very large invasion and they have no other places to deposit them. A naturalist once said of cicadas, “Oviposition is visually impressive, but dynamically irrelevant.” Because cicadas need trees to survive, it is not in their best interest to kill their hosts.

The United State Department of Agriculture has a map that shows where the broods will emerge by year. Most of the cicadas that emerge this year will be in Western Ohio. Please go to this website to view the map: https://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/docs/CicadaBroodStaticMap.pdf

I don’t usually recommend You Tube as a source, but this website is an excellent video on the life cycle of the cicadas. It also has good video of what a slit branch looks like. If you are a bit squeamish, fair warning, there are many pictures of the critters but there are also many practical tips. https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/brood-x-is-coming-cicadas-return-by-the-billions-in-2021/

This website is from Earth & Sky Magazine and has an excellent map of affected areas. https://earthsky.org/earth/17-year-cicadas-broodx-2021

I hope this helps. Please email us again if you need further information. And good luck to you on your new landscaping!