Apple Hollow

[Virg]

I moved into this house about a year ago and it had an overgrown apple tree in the front yard. Trying to do the right thing for this tree, but I'm finding problems with it. The biggest problem has evolved like this: I found a limb that had some bark issues and apparently some wood boring insect at about 5 feet up. I had my yard guy who does some amateur work cut this infected branch off and found that it had a pretty good hollow spot inside. (See Pictures) The yard guy gave his opinion that the tree didn't look healthy and he suspected that this hollow was widespread.

What can I do to save this tree?

How should I care for this wound?

The yard guy pruned the tree during the winter, do these summer cuts need to be treated differently?

Notice the small larva in the close up picture.

Not sure if my images are uploaded correctly please tell me if you can't see them.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Virg]

I'm pretty sure the original images didn't work, here they are on an image hosting site:

 

[BC WetCoast]

I can't see the photos, but I will say that apples are very hardy and the wood is quite strong. You can have relatively large cavities and the tree is stable. If the cavities are quite large, then I would suggest you keep the canopy equally contained to reduce the stress on the stem.

Apples are prone to a number of fungal leaf diseases and can make the tree look crappy. However, it's been my experience that it takes a lot to kill an apple. An early spring spray of dormant oil and lime sulphur can be beneficial.

Hopefully we can give better advice when we can see the pics.