Tree Pests

[Kristin]

I was outside admiring the tree in my front yard which is about to go into full bloom in the day 24 to 48 hours by the looks of it when I noticed that one huge branch had no buds on it. I should mentioned it is a Flowering Almond tree which was finally confirmed by someone who worked at a local greenhouse. I went over and began examining just how large of a section was dead and it was fairly significant. I was quite puzzled because the tree looks very healthy. I need to go and buy a bow saw to get the section off but I was able to pull off a few of the smaller branches that come off the larger one and realized what the problem was.

The inside of the branches had been turned into like mulch and it was filled with little bugs. I'm not sure what kind as I don't know much about trees but they were black and about the size of normal black ants. I'm quite concerned because I know that branch was alive and flowered last year because I sent my significant other up the tree to cut off a much smaller dead branch last fall and would have had him cut this one off as well if it had looked like it wasn't doing well.

So my question is, does anyone know what these bugs are and how I get them out of my tree before they destroy it? I live in Southern Ontario Canada, thanks in advance for any help.