Caterpillars have infested my silver pine tree. I took most of them off the tree, but some are probably still hiding there and there are some yucky eggs or something among the leaves too. They ate most of my tree. What can I do? How do I get rid of the remaining Caterpillars? How do I kill the ones I took off (they are in a bucket, and as much as I hate them I don't want them to suffer much). How do I save my tree? The inner part of the pine tree is completely dry and the leaves at the very end are eaten by the caterpillars. I am not sure I can win this battle. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

It has been a year since I asked this question about caterpillars eating my silver pine tree. The following spring - early in the season - I cut off all the little branches that didn't have any leaves. The tree started shooting out new leaves. I had to check the tree vigilantly for white gypsy moth eggs, and remove them instantly. After sunset (once the bees left the garden) I sprayed the tree with Neemoil this way the bees didn't get hurt. The tree is now recovering.

Sorry we missed your question last year, and thanks for the update. You did the right thing. It's likely that the little branches without any leaves would have also produced new growth the following year, too, but in the end, int won't matter. You will want to be vigilant in coming years, also. Neem oil (and many other sprays) might take the silver color away from the needles, but that doesn't harm the plant.

Yes, sometimes, many questions come at once, and some get buried down to the next page and missed.

Bt spray will kill caterpillars and not harm bees.

Thank you for your replies. No worries, I just wanted to send an update in case anyone else comes across a similar gypsy moth/caterpillar infestation.

Those are not yucky eggs but caterpillar poop!
They look like Gypsy moth caterpillars. There are blue dots on the dorsal surface and then red dots.
I wasn't aware that they ate spruce trees.
If they are, you have a method of control. They will over winter as dried soapy tan egg masses that look a little like dried foam. They are round at both ends. These egg cases can by soaked with a little kerosene to kill them or scraped off into a bucket and disposed of.
Gypsy moths, the females, do not fly very far. With that many caterpillars, they will spread like crazy. You could easily be looking at 2,000, 5,000 egg masses or more just from that tree! If you could eliminate half of them or three quarters of them, it could be a big help next year.

Thank you so much BigBill!! I will check for eggs to make sure I get rid of them before the winter.
I managed to pick off most of the caterpillars last summer. There were a lot, but I worked on it about 30min - 1 hour each day for a week! After that I also kept checking for any pupae. I realized later that the brown yucky things were caterpillar poops (ewww!) so I hosed them off the tree.
I found some eggs this spring and scraped them off which really kept the gypsy moth problem under control this year. The neem oil also helped. Gypsy moths do horrible damage here in Connecticut, so I will need to monitor these trees for gypsy moth infestation each year. Scraping off the eggs in a timely manner is definitely the most effective method of getting rid of them. Thank you for your reply!

You are welcome.