Crunch 'n' munch

Several weeks ago Barry told me to go listen to the pear tree.  It was humming with the reassuring sound of honey bees at work.  Yesterday I entered the orchard (the small area next to the carport where our two fruit trees are situated) and heard a different sound, a disturbing one.  To adapt the fine poetry of Clement C Moore to the circumstances at hand:  "And then in a twinkling I heard with alarm, the biting and gnawing of each little worm."  I regret that I couldn't find a good rhyme there, even while misrepresenting the creatures as worms when they are surely caterpillars, though that is just an assumption since they are hidden inside their folded up leaves.

The pear and apple trees both look very sad.  I think the apple should have produced blossoms by now and hasn't because it's under too much stress from being chewed on.  I feel bad about it.  For one thing, the trees needed to be sprayed with a substance detrimental to caterpillars and I didn't get it done in time.  I wonder if a lack of predators could a source of the infestation as well.  Two years ago we acquired a wasp trap that was effective way beyond our expectations.  We then wondered if the death of so many wasps at once could affect the local population.  There were still a few wasp around the next summer, though; the population would recover even if we had affected it.  This spring I hung a Waspinator® imitation wasp nest in the pear tree to guard against wasps making nests in some buried cinder block bricks nearby.  We had a bad experience with such bricks in another location a few years ago.  It did not occur to me that doing this might keep all wasps away from the pear tree and I don't know if that has been the effect.   If this is the cause, I'm at a loss.  We want the wasps for pest control but we won't offer them a place to live.  We would let them nest in our yard if they would promise not to sting us for simply walking past the nest,  But where does one find a Vespo-English dictionary?  Peaceful co-existence with wasps is a tricky business.

My neighbour recommended Trounce® Insecticide and assured me it was biologically safe product.  Today at a garden centre I happened upon this product.  After reading the alarming list of precautions, I put it back on the shelf.  Having since looked up some information on potassium salts of fatty acids and pyrethrum, I begin to think the product might not be so bad after all. But is it too late?