This little "nest" is being made on the side of a pine tree next to my sawmill. Some type of wasp?
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/33361/20160819_192403.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1471884908)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/33361/20160819_192421.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1471884953)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/33361/20160819_192434.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1471884973)
Looks like a potters wasp, kinda like a mud dauber.
I can't tell from the pics but is that structure a resin mass? If so it is probably a pine borer or beetle of one kind or another. How big is the hole? Probably really bad news for the tree.
I'll have to take another look at it. I just noticed it the other day and quickly took a couple of pics.
Probably Black Turpentine Beetle, or one of the other bark beetles. If at the base and not very high up, the first, if they go up the stem a ways, one of the others.
It's about head high...
Break some off if it crumbles into dust like dry clay its gonna be a potters wasp.
It crumbles but I just took a closer look around and they are on multiple trees. This one is about head hugh, but several are near the base of the trees. The one in the pic is about the size of a dime.
Like TR said, it is a pitch tube from a black turpentine bark beetle.
http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev2_043190.pdf
They can kill the tree. You may very well lose those trees, but southern pine can survive a black turpentine beetle attack.
Thank you for the info. Wondering if they were introduced from all the pine I've been cutting. I've got slabs everywhere and they have been "clicking" with grubs under the bark for a long while. Now the "clicking" sound is gone and these are popping up on the surrounding trees.
The clicking sound is coming from ambrosia beetles and flat head borers. They are secondary hosts after the tree has died or has been felled. However, the slabs could very well have attracted the bark beetles.