Should I remove or save my honey locust?
Honey Locust isn't a habitual problem species, so a sound one is usually worth an opinion before it comes out. This became the default replacement tree after emerald ash borer cleared the ash, and central Indiana now has street after street of it — which is the problem. Extension pathologists have warned for decades that honeylocust's pest and disease list turned serious precisely because it was overplanted, and a monoculture block moves mimosa webworm, mites, and canker through in a hurry.
How to tell which one you've got
One limb yellowing and wilting out of season while the rest of the canopy looks fine is the Thyronectria pattern — cut the bark on that limb and look for a sunken canker with reddish-brown discolored wood underneath. Whole-canopy thinning by August is usually mimosa webworm defoliation instead, and that tree will releaf next spring; the cankered one loses another limb every year until it is girdled.
The structural question
Counterintuitive but well documented — honeylocust is rated susceptible to ice damage, and in the Urbana ice-storm survey it posted one of the highest damage rates of any major street-tree species. Its fine, heavily lateral branching catches an enormous ice load relative to its wood volume, so it breaks up in ice far more than its reputation as a bulletproof urban tree suggests.
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