Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Fan Tex ash is a grafted cultivar of Fraxinus velutina (Arizona ash). A previous Mr. Smarty Plants answer described the background of the Fan Tex ash.

Ash trees are one of the preferred host trees for stink bugs. They eat the foliage. Bill Cary in an article on stink bugs published in USA Today says, "They tend to like to eat the foliage and seeds of black locust, maple, ash, Ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven) and catalpa trees."

But depending on the type of stink bug present, some are beneficial and others detrimental to agricultural crops. Stink bugs, yellow jackets and wasps are being attracted to the ash for some reason so a close up investigation is necessary to see if they are going after the honeydew produced by aphids for example (scale will also produce honeydew that also attracts bees and wasps). So before action is taken, it is important to determine what is attracting the stink bugs, bees and wasps to your tree. If you can't see anything that might be attracting the pests, perhaps a consultation with an arborist will solve the mystery. There is no use spraying a general insectide on the tree unless a pest is identified as doing damage to the ash.