Bees clustered in crack in the bark Greetings Fellow Foxies,
Yesterday I noticed honeybees clustering around cracks in a single Marri tree. My first thought was that the bees must be pretty desperate to drink the astringent reddish kino that oozes out of marri trunks and branches (kino was used by Noongars as an antiseptic and for treating stomach disorders).
It then dawned on me that I was surrounded by marris covered in kino deposits but the bees were only on one tree trunk. The following images reveal my discoveries as I peeled away about a centimeter of layers with a pen knife.
After shooing off bees and removing an outer layer of loose dead bark, I discovered droplets of honey-coloured sweet nectar oozing out with surrounding bark stained black and bright blue in one case, by a skin fungus growing on nectar-rich bark.
Yesterday I noticed honeybees clustering around cracks in a single Marri tree. My first thought was that the bees must be pretty desperate to drink the astringent reddish kino that oozes out of marri trunks and branches (kino was used by Noongars as an antiseptic and for treating stomach disorders).
It then dawned on me that I was surrounded by marris covered in kino deposits but the bees were only on one tree trunk. The following images reveal my discoveries as I peeled away about a centimeter of layers with a pen knife.
After shooing off bees and removing an outer layer of loose dead bark, I discovered droplets of honey-coloured sweet nectar oozing out with surrounding bark stained black and bright blue in one case, by a skin fungus growing on nectar-rich bark.
A bit further in was a tiny (3mm long) cigar shaped object at the top of the flow. This is an insect pupa (note the head and remnants of legs on the pupa case), that was still in the soup stage prior to reforming as an adult. Judging by the copious nectar flow, it is likely that the pupa had drowned.
 Droplet from emerging from entrance. Note skin fungus |  Pupa at top of flow |  Pupae. Note head and remnant legs |
Further in was a defined oval hole of a burrow that opened out into a frass (poo) filled chamber right on the boundary between the bark and sapwood. This cambium layer contains the tree’s plumbing system where water (going up) and sugar solution (going down) is situated.
(Random comment: this is why trees die when they are ringbarked).
When I mistakenly penetrated the sapwood, red kino immediately welled out and started to become gummy.
(Random comment: this is why trees die when they are ringbarked).
When I mistakenly penetrated the sapwood, red kino immediately welled out and started to become gummy.
 Oval shaped burrow |  Frass filled chamber top left. Kino leaking where sapwood has been penetrated |  top lef chamber cleaned out to show roughened surfaces. |
The conclusion is damage by a beetle or moth larva borer that specifically targets the marri cambium layer causing sugars produced by the tree to flow out as nectar.
Large deposits of red kino on marris comes from damage to the underlying sapwood as described in this blog
Large deposits of red kino on marris comes from damage to the underlying sapwood as described in this blog