So, check this out...
If you go back up to the fist post and check out the the 5th and 6th (the close-ups of the damage high up on the Sicilian Red), you might see a black speck.  (It is up toward the top of the 5th picture.)  I didn't notice this until Pete pointed out the small holes and I went back to take a closer look at the original pictures I took.)
  Here's a better shot of it:


I suspected it might be the head or tail-end of one of these buggers!  So, I started scraping away some of the dead bark right around that area.  (Sorry for the bad pics...this was the best I could get with my camera's macro mode and it's crummy auto exposure.)
   

It sure looked like a bugger to me, so I carefully flicked it onto a piece of paper and took some more photos.  It was dead.  Maybe it got stuck in its own exit hole!  It was another "big" one...1.5-2mm long.  I can see more detail through the magnifying doubler than I can get with the macro mode on the camera, but it is definitely a beetle.
     


Note again that this bugger was taken off the Sicilian Red, which was the tree I originally began posting about (and whose pictures I show in post 1.)    The pictures I showed in post 19 were from a Kadota that seems to have been affected more severely. 

Jim

"Better figging thru chemicals"

yes...'kill a commie... i mean... a borer for mommy!' ah... 80's and all those rambo/SOF one liners...

This might be worse than (ahem) fungus gnats.  They get the babies, but those borers kill a tree ready to bear fruit!  I've never been "organic or green" and I don't think you can afford to be so.  This is a big war!  You need to use whatever chemical you can to destroy these borers, but do consider latex paint on uninfected tree trunks.  The borers hate that stuff.

Suzi

One very scary thing here is that I bought the Kadota in September 2012.  It was probably a ~4+' tree, maybe a bit spindly, but still had leaves and looked otherwise healthy.  Did it have any borers then?  Maybe.  Who knows?

 

This tree never broke dormancy in Spring 2013, and my notes say " 7-apr-2013 no signs of activity -- dead? " when the other trees I had at that time were breaking bud.  So in just the span of a couple of months over the winter in an unheated basement it went from healthy to dried.

But did the beetles kill the tree??  Or did the beetles attack an already weakened/distressed/dying tree?

For completeness, these are the notes I have on the Sicilian Red:

This whole thing sucks, and we will band together to get your trees back, once you get rid of the beetles!  Sad day for you, but better times ahead!

Suzi

Sorry to get off topic, Jim, but is that a plumeria tree I spy in the background?  NICE, some aloha in the Garden State!

Nate

i chopped up another tree last night. no soft area under the bark, but the tree has been acting funny. never really grew. then i noticed bark damage. so cut that part off and started slicing away... nothing. it's frustrating to chop the tree off and not finding anything.. but i guess that's a good thing...

Nate,
  Good eye!  That is a plumeria that started as an 8" cutting that I bought in summer 1992 at the Honolulu Airport prior to returning from my honeymoon!  I've been doing the "plumeria shuffle" for 22 years...moving it outside onto the deck in spring and back inside in the fall.  You might spy a bit of damage from where I left it out in the cold too long one October a few years ago.  It had dieback on all the tips, but they resprouted and the wounds are finally scarring over and looking less garish.
  I've been abusing it over the years -- it is in desperate need of repotting, and it never really gets enough sun.  I used to get flowers reliably at my old house a decade ago, where it got more sun and hadn't been abused for so long.  I got one flower spike last year after a long stretch of no flowers for many years.
  It was an oddity 20 years ago, but now apparently there is quite a big plumeria trade going.  Those plumeria collectors are crazy -- they spend so much time and money collecting all different kinds from around the world.  They start off as little stick cuttings that they try to propagate, and they can't be satisfied with just one or two.  Honestly, I don't understand people like that! It's not like they're figs or something...;-)
Jim

what we need plumeria/fig joint task force.. so we can inter-trade those two.. have 7 yr old plumeria that's still doing ok. i think i left it out too long last winter. i wouldn't mind large number of plumeria around here. they smell so good. 

Jim,

I was fortunate.  The three plumeria cuttings I brought back last summer all died.  I could have easily seen myself becoming one of "those people."

Burn it!

 

I've heard of folks having shothole borer problems and that it's limited to weakened trees.  See http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r602301511.html  I've never witnessed the problem myself.

I think isolating the tree from the others is important.  You may have to kill it, but I'd give it a very hot bath for a very long time first.  120 degrees submerged for maybe an hour.  I think... not sure...that this would kill larvae, destroy adults and eggs.  I am sure it won't kill your tree, but the beetles will!  I'd be inclined to dump a bottle of alcohol (not good wine) in that bath also, and maybe some Imacloprid and soap.  Isolate the tree, watch the others, and see if it can recover.  You still see bugs, you will have to let that tree go. 

Just a note here.  We used to live in the low desert where temps often hit 120 degrees F.  My figs were fine with this heat.  I had one in a container and it stayed alive with 1 or 3 leaves for 3 years.  Finally Jon told me I was frying it's roots in that container!  Wow!  Imagine, if the outside temp is 120 degrees, how hot those poor roots got in that pot!!  The fix was to move it to shade, douse it with water 3 times, then put diluted miracle grow on it.  That tree came from a cutting from UC davis, and it did have FMV.  After it's roots cooked, no more FMV.  It was a perfect clean tree!  But it suffered a sad demise when it caught a whiff of spray paint from workers on this house.  Sadly, I couldn't save the tree from chemical destruction, but you can try to save yours!

If I had a Sicilian Red, I'd gift it to you.  Many here have it, and an offer may come.

Suzi

Chivas, thanks for the links. I found a Longhorned beetle larva in an old apple tree I was trying to save. I never could identify it until now. One of the ugliest things alive!