Same for us, six pear trees and the squirrels taste tested each pear, one bite, then dropped them on the ground. We solved that problem only to lose the next year’s crop to a bunch of Mexicans or so we assume. My husband was out working in the garden when he saw and heard a group of them pointing at our trees, talking about them. Next morning they were stripped even though we have a No Trespassing sign on the fence around the yard.
We used to lose our apricot crop the same way. The tree was close to the street. Just about when they were ripe to perfection and the squirrels were sampling them, the tree would get stripped clean overnight. My son saw Mexicans doing it, too. My peach trees were in the front yard, closer to the house, and got quite big, so they didn’t bother them. But the squirrels got them. There was one tree at each end of the house and their feet on the roof at dawn sounded like a superhighway overhead. They would run from one end of the house to the other just to make sure both trees were devastated an equal amount.
I hAd two apple trees so close together that the branches were tangled together.
Once spring day; after remarking how full they both were; we came out and discovered that one had been cleaned out and the other not touched at all!
Never did figure that out unless it was fruit eating bats; and they don’t live around Indiana!
Wasn’t any apples on the ground under the one empty tree either.
Baffling...