Life Cycle

• Adult female borers drill tiny holes into the trunks or limbs of fruit trees, where they lay their eggs. When these eggs hatch, the larvae bore into the tree, feeding on the roots and soft sapwood of the tree. The entire life cycle may take a year. The insects cause the most damage while still in the larval stage, during which they feed voraciously.
  
  

Symptoms of Infestation

• Crown borers are difficult to identify because they live primarily below the soil surface and inside the tree. External evidence of peach tree borers includes a translucent or clear sap exuding from the tree, according to Colorado State University Extension.
  
  

Solutions

• Crown borer larvae are difficult to control because they reside inside the tree where pesticides don't effectively reach them, but spraying tree trunks with permethrin or carbaryl pesticides kills adults and eggs. Proper watering, fertilizing and sunburn protection are part of the defense against crown borers. Soil around the tree's roots should be examined periodically to detect insects. Severely infested trees should be destroyed.