Ground Bees

Digger bees. Mining bees.
Have you ever heard of such a thing?

All my life, I've never heard of such a thing.

But I've got 'em, by gum. The frozen-in-one-place child told me so: "Mommy! Come look at this! There are bees EVERYWHERE!"

Hundreds of 'em. Little low-flying hazards covering my entire front yard, flyin' around with all their buddies in little circles no more than about a foot off the ground. All over the front yard. Which is sizeable. Everywhere. It's kinda like ground fog. Except completely different.

I had 'em last year, too, but I was just moving into this house around then, so my time spent in their company was minimal. I remember them last year, and I remember when they disappeared (which I now understand that they didn't) and I just slid right into denial about them coming back the next year which is now this year, thinking maybe it was a little freak bee swarm that only happens once a century or something. Wrong-o.

So I did what I do. I looked 'em up.

And I found out that they might be bees...ground bees, digger bees, mining bees...or maybe they're wasps. Or possibly yellow jackets. And if they are one of those, they don't sting, and maybe if they are another one they sting like a son-of-a-gun, and maybe if they are another one they can sting but they rarely do, and if they are one of them, it's best to keep children and pets out of the area (for months? really?) I learned that they dig little holes in the hard sandy ground and make little nests in there, where they lay their little bee eggs and sleep down there for most of the year, and then TA-DA! they all fly out of their little holes in spring, as soon as the sun hits the yard. And they stick around for a month or two and then they go away (right).

And I learned that if they are one kind then beekeepers might want them (and exactly how would they collect them?) and if they are another kind, they probably don't want them, and even if they are that kind, beekeepers might not want them, and if they are wasps, then why would beekeepers be interested? I don't know any beekeepers, but I'm not so inclined to find some to convince them to come over here and see if the thousands (I know, I just said hundreds, but I'm bad at estimating, and there might be thousands, I didn't count) of little flying creatures are anything they might want, when the chances are slim.

And of course, I found out that all pest control strategies are bad (BAD) because well, they're poisonous and terrible for the environment and toxic to the aforementioned children and animals, and also because you'd have to treat hundreds of square feet because the bees (if that's what they are) nest in hundreds of little holes covering the whole front yard. This is no spray-in-one-hole-and-you're-done kinda thing. And more importantly, it's a bad idea because the bees (if that's what they are) are really good for the garden--they eat grubs, they aerate the lawn (or in my case, the scrubby stuff out between the patches of dirt in my front yard), and they pollinate the flowers and trees. And on top of that, as you may have heard, bees are dying all over the world, and it's really not a good idea to be trying to kill mass quantities of bees (if that's what they are) if we're trying to keep the planet in balance, which I'm pretty convinced that we are, at least in my neck of the woods. But if they're wasps, all bets are off. I'm not sure what the deal is if they're yellow jackets.

Isn't the internet great? I know so much more now than I did before, and at the same time, I know nothing! Why, in the old days, I had to go to the public library to find out that I don't know anything. Now I can find out in my own home! Progress. It's somethin' else.

And that, children, concludes our bee (if that's what they are) lesson for the day.

Ground bees? WTF?

Update: May 4, 2009. They're gone! Read about it here.

In Search of Shared Vocabulary

Here's what I don't get: Smart.

(Warning: Child Development Geek Rant)

Today, in my meanderings online, I happened upon an article on CNN about the findings from a new study that found that (contrary to popular belief??) watching tv does not make babies smarter. Aside from the overwhelming impulse to shake my head and say "Duh!" ad infinitum, I found myself wondering (as ever). There was so much not to get in this article.

First, the title: "Study: Want a smart baby? TV's not going to help". This is where the "duh's" began. The study it cites, out of Harvard Medical School (so it must be good), has shown that Baby Einstein and similar products are not, in fact, beneficial for infants (more duh, even if only because these findings have already been well documented). It says that children under six months are watching .9 hours of TV a day. Best yet, they quote a child development expert from UCLA (who is---surprise!--a consultant for Baby Einstein) as saying that the material in educational baby DVDs is similar to what is in books. Yeah, but books don't read themselves--there has to be a real, live, three-dimensional adult, complete with capacity for emotional response and shifting inflection. It's a key point.

In the end, what really bothered me the most was the baseline idea--the goal of having a "smart" baby (or more accurately, a "smarter" baby, since the most important thing is not for your baby to be smart, but to be smarter than the other kid at Gymboree, who you can tell already is not going to go to Harvard). There are some real problems here.

First off, the strongest predictors of children's intelligence are their parents' intelligence and education level a (if intelligence is, in fact, what we mean by "smart", which may not be the case). Today's article reminds us that "parent perceptions [are] that TV viewing is beneficial to their children's brain development". This is powerful irony at work. If their parents really believe that having their four month old baby watch Baby Einstein is beneficial, then those children are already at a genetic disadvantage, no? (assuming biological parentage, which I acknowledge is not a given).

And the second, and more pressing question (for me) is: given that we all want our children to be "smart" and do well in school and life, what does "smart" mean? Does it mean that we think that their IQ, as measured on standardized instruments, will be higher? Does it mean that they'll do better in school (hint: school success is not so much about being "smart")? What sort of school? Smart in one school might be not-so-smart in another school. Does it mean that they can recite facts? Does it mean that they can say clever things at an early age to impress the neighbors and grandparents? Does it mean they perform better on standardized, mulitple-choice tests than 90% of the other kids? Does it mean that they will think critically and divergently, making them the leaders of the 21st century? Does it mean that they can read six months before the kid next door? If we don't agree on what "smart" means, then how can we even discuss what makes or does not make kids "smart"?

Here's the thing. We SAY that it helps kids to be smarter. We say that to make ourselves feel better about sitting a baby in front of a TV so that we can make dinner or go to the bathroom (a sling will take care of that, too, just fyi). We say they're interested. Yes, the light patterns as the picture shifts mesmerize young minds (have you ever watched the expression of an infant/toddler watching TV? If not, you should. It's telling), as do any pattern of designs and shifting light. We recoil with offense when someone tells us that we're using TV as a babysitter, defending the"educational" choices we have made for our childrens "benefit", not for our convenience.

I'm a big believer in the truth. Honesty is the best policy and all that. Let's just admit what we're doing. Of course parents use TV as a babysitter. Yes, it's not the best idea. There are surely better ones. But, as the article points out, it's reality. So let's just say it. I bought Baby Einstein so I could have a cup of coffee in silence. Good for you. You get what you need to keep you sane (a key feature of the ability to parent well), and the baby is "kept occupied". As long as its not done to excess, who cares. Having a baby (or two) is a big job, and everyone needs a break now and again. We all get that. So stick that DVD in there, and have a half hour to yourself. Just don't tell yourself and others that you're doing something great for your child. You are doing something great for yourself (maybe) without leaving your child to watch reruns of CSI. There's nothing the matter with that.

Best of all, we don't need any fancy studies to show us it works. We have the clean hair and paid bills to prove it.