I have a japanese maple in my yard that my parents planted when they first moved in. It is almost 30 years old now and last week my father and I noticed the bark was coming off. I took a closer look and saw small red bumps in a spot on the bark. I even found a few on the underside of the bark that came off. Are these scale insects? My mother recently spread cedar mulch around the base of the tree like she does every year. If it is scale insects on the tree, could they have come from the mulch? There are also some spruce trees in my neighbor's yard whose needles have been dying for a while. How do I get rid of the insects, and even if I do, will the tree die anyway, since it has started losing its bark. If we end up cutting it down, should we burn it, so whatever it has doesn't spread. There are a lot of sugar and norway maples around my home. Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is a sentimental tree to my parents, and we would like to save it if we can.