Carpenter Bees

Last weekend I had an unwelcome visitor. A carpenter bee decided that my deck would be a good place to raise a family. I disagreed. If you don’t know about these amazing insects, here goes:

 Carpenter bees are quite different from honey bees. Carpenters don't make honey and they don't live in communal hives. They seldom sting - only the female (queen) is capable of stinging. The males will buzz around you and try to intimidate you, but are actually harmless.

A carpenter bee, without a tool belt.
Photo: Daniel Schwen.

How do you recognize a carpenter bee? If you’re lucky you may also be able to see one wearing a tiny tool belt, with saw, hammer, pliers etc. Otherwise they look a lot like bumble bees, but they have a black shiny bum, instead of a furry one. But the dead giveaway is that they drill beautifully round ½” holes in any piece of wood that they fancy for a nursery. 

This carpenter bee chose a tree.
Photo: ZooFari.

 Here’s a picture of the hole that “my” carpenter bee drilled under the railing of my deck. 

 This is actually the second hole. The light-coloured stuff is Play-doh which I used to fill in the first hole, in a vain attempt to stop her. I chased her off the second time and sprayed the hole with insecticide which evidently she didn’t like.  

Carpenter bees are good pollinators and we need them, so perhaps I should have been more generous. But I selfishly want to keep my deck, and carpenter bees don’t really care. If I had let this queen carpenter alone, she would have drilled out a long (about 6 inches) passage at right angles to the initial hole. She would have alternated filling the chambers of the passage with pollen and eggs. The eggs would have hatched and larvae would have fed on the pollen. Then the larvae would have become pupae which would have become adult carpenter bees, The process would have taken seven weeks to produce a bunch more carpenter bees to continue carving up my deck. 

You can see why I didn’t want my deck to become a carpenter bee nursery.

Snakes at the Seaside and Birds in the Bush

By Claire Eamer

"Snake!" yelled 8-year-old Carys, and dove for the grassy bank beside the trail. She emerged clutching a deeply puzzled garter snake at least 60 centimetres long, with elegant checkerboard markings on its sides and a jagged yellow stripe running the length of its back.

Western garter snake, found at Pipers Lagoon Park, Nanaimo.

The rest of the group -- more than two dozen kids and adults, with an age range from 8 to 80-ish -- crowded around to admire her catch. Our leader, biology professor Tim Goater of Nanaimo's Vancouver Island University (VIU) identified it as a female western garter snake (Thamnophis elegans), almost certainly pregnant, and the largest specimen he had seen at Pipers Lagoon, the small seaside park we were exploring. Western garter snakes have a variable diet, depending on where they live, he explained. Carys's prize catch would specialize in hunting intertidal fishes among the park's rocks and tidepools.

Professor Tim Goater with
a large clam at Pipers Lagoon.

Once everyone had admired the snake, we put her back on the slope beside the trail and watched, fascinated, as she disappeared into the grass and undergrowth in less than a second.

The mixed group of kids and adults wasn't just a casual group of visitors to the seashore. We were students in a class called Explorations of Animal Diversity, one of 10 offerings at this year's edition of Grandkids University. The two-day program is open to kids aged 7 to 13 and to their grandparents or grandparent-equivalents (other senior relatives or special friends).

Carys, left, entranced by birdbanding.

Carys and I (I'm her great-aunt) were in our second year at Grandkids University this year. Her brother, Rowan, was in his third year. He and his special friend, Susan, spent two days in the chemistry lab, making soap, slime, invisible ink, instant ice cream, and pop-bottle rockets -- and learning a considerable amount of chemistry along the way.

Over two days, Carys and I got to see and handle garter snakes both in the lab and in the field, peer at insects through a dissecting microscope, search for animals in the intertidal zone, visit a bird-banding station, dissect a ratfish in search of parasites, and tour VIU's International Centre for Sturgeon Studies.

Master bander Eric Demers shows the wing feathers
of a Common Yellowthroat.

And, at the end of the two days, we all attended a graduation ceremony in the university's theatre. VIU's symbols -- a mace and a beautifully decorated steering paddle -- were formally piped through the theatre to the stage. Then, the VIU registrar, in full academic robes, presented each adult and child with a completion certificate. Kids and adults who had attended Grandkids University for 5 years also received "Masters" medals. (Both Rowan and Carys are determined to get their Masters!)

A female American Goldfinch receives its individualized band.

This is the 11th year for VIU's Grandkids University, and it drew a record 163 participants. Almost a dozen former kid participants have grown up to become VIU students, and a number of the participating adults also take VIU classes. Clearly it's part of the university's recruiting program, but it does more than just generate students.

Carys found a seastar that had lost one arm
and was still regrowing its replacement.

Both the kids and the grandparents learn things -- about the subject they are studying and about each other. For two days, they are equals, experiencing the pleasure of learning something new and interesting. The kids can see that adults don't know everything, but that they can learn. The adults get a chance to see how bright and capable the kids are.

And everyone is reminded that learning isn't drudgery. It's fun.

All photos by Claire Eamer.

The (Missing) Link Between Smartphones and Horns

by L. E. Carmichael

Last weekend, suffering from an airplane cold and soaking my coughing muscles in a hot tub while listening to old episodes of The Daily Show on Sirius on Demand, I heard an incredible story about how smartphone use is causing millennials to grow horns. Here's the link to coverage at the BBC.

Image by Shahar D. and Sayers M., Scientific Reports, 2019/CC BY 4.0

Hacking up my second lung, my first thought in reaction to this story was, well, sure. Because I use the internet regularly and have therefore been exposed to a lot of conversation about the evils of both millennials and smart phones, so the equation

millennials + smartphones = inevitable emergence of inner demons

seemed completely logical.

My second thought, emerging from my life-long exposure to both the sciences and oft-times sketchy science reporting, was that this story was indeed incredible, in the  sense of "impossible to believe."

My second thought was the way to go, as this plain-language article from PBS outlines in some detail.

TL/DR version: the authors of the original study didn't actually measure cell phone use in their subjects, meaning they are blaming a skeletal anomaly on a specific behaviour based on... absolutely no data.

Another red flag? The authors recommend preventative postural education, and one of them runs an online store that sells posture-correcting pillows.

In science speak, that's called a conflict of interest. It doesn't necessarily mean that the results of the research are biased, but it absolutely means that readers should apply an extra filter of critical thinking before accepting them.

I encourage everyone to read the PBS article, because it's a great primer on scientific literacy that provides tools for assessing all science reported in the media. In the meantime, you can probably stop poking your skull in search of horns.

What are your thoughts on this story? Do you have other favourite examples of incredible results to share?