The Tropical Fruit Forum

Check out and/or repost to the thread "Growing Mango trees in Southern California".  It has a lot of information.  You might want to "pug" the tree in your picture to get lower branching (you probably don't want your mangoes 10 ft off the ground), but I would ask the frequent posters in that thread (Simon, Spaugh, Oolie ...) for their opinion on when the best time of year is to do that and how high to cut it off.  They have a lot of experience grafting and top-working mango trees.

Keep them if you can and get a hive box, as others have said.  What is most problematic (other than aggressive behavior) is if they decide to build a hive within the structure of your house.  Getting rid of them may require tearing down drywall and cleaning out any honey that they've produced before sealing up, otherwise a new colony may be attracted to the residual honey.

On the other hand, my next-door neighbor relocated an existing hive (for honey production) to his yard earlier this year.  He was worried that we'd be upset by the bees. Not! My Holiday avocado tree, which has never set more than 4-6 fruit/year in over 10 years that I've had it no matter what I've done, this year has scores of baby avocados.

If you absolutely must kill them, malathion works.  I previously lived in very urban area where bees would be a big problem, and wound up with a colony in my open compost pile.  I purchased malathion concentrate in a hose-end sprayer and sprayed the pile during the evening (after dark, when bees are less active) from about 20-30 feet away.  It worked very well and no one got stung.

Today, I would call a relocation service if I could not keep a hive.  But I keep some malathion around in case of an emergency.

It is widely rumored that Huanglongbing (citrus greening) was brought into California by a foreign national legally travelling to the US, who brought infected citrus cuttings in his/her luggage, and then grafted to friends' and relative's residential citrus trees. They apparently tracked this person down, but he/she was long gone back to country of origin.

Always wondered about grafting onto greening resistant rootstock but this could have a similar effect! Very exciting. A few of us knew it would be fine, that we would just have to wait it out for somebody who could profit off this to make a "real cure"

I wonder whether grafting a branch of finger lime onto other citrus varieties or spraying a crude extract from finger lime trimmings would would impart a protective effect.  Will be interesting to see where the peptide is expressed and in what quantities.

Sounds like you are following Gary Matsuoka's advice on repotting plants into a mix with low to no organic matter, which rots and kills plants.  He excludes peat moss in the definition of organic matter because it decomposes slowly and is, by nature, low organic (has been in a bog rotting for a long time...).  If you watch a few of his videos on this topic, you'll hear that the repotted plants turn yellow and drop leaves, but this is normal, and will resolve in time. In his potting mix, fertilizer is required as there is no organic matter to provide nutrients.  He uses Osmocote Plus, which has micros.  May be slower recovery repotting in fall and winter than spring because the plants are growing less actively.

I bought a Tango mandarin from four winds grower in middle of October.  The plant potting mix was a mixture of fir bark and peat moss.  So I decided to bare root the tree and repot it in a more gritty mix and still well drained.  I re-potted it on 10/14/2019.  I also gave it a scoop of osmocote plus.  I leave it in the shade for two weeks.  After two weeks, I brought it out to full sun.  Since then, the plant has been stunted.  The new growth/leaves are yellow.  The old ones are turning yellow also.  Do you think this is a seasonal issue or lack of nutrients?

Thanks

Oolie, Thanks for letting me know - invaluable information.  I was really hot at the CFRF plant sale, so it's mostly my fault - I just wanted to get back in my air conditioned car. 

Simon,  I just saw this video from Chris at Truly Tropical:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd_5JDBWYck
She suggests cutting of most but not all of the individual panicles of mango flowers on young trees (in pots) to keep them from flowering again, allowing the plant to put more energy into vegetative growth.  If you remove just 90% or so, she says it is less likely to send out another panicle, but removing the whole thing triggers bloom.  She also has some tips on pruning to stimulate vegetative growth.  I know she's in Florida, so the temperature effect will be different, but might be worth a try. 

Look into voles

Simon,

This is a great thread and I've learned a lot about the mango tree I just purchased.  I do have a question about flowering and temperature in young trees.  If flowering is preventing vegetative growth and flowering continues until the temperature reaches a certain minimum temperature, has anyone tried using an external heat source, like incandescent Christmas tree lights, at least during the weeks or months before the average night time lows approach the temperature that suppresses flowering? Might that inhibit re-flowering and allow the young trees to put out more flushes?