The children catching and releasing fireflies this summer may know they are running after beetles rather than flies or gloworms, and they may be training to protect the world from disease-carrying insects or from dangerous insecticides. While some kids panic at the sight of bees, spiders, and cockroaches, others watch caterpillars walk up their arms and might become the inspectors who keep dangerous insects out of countries or observe, as Rachel Carson did, how deadly an insect repellent like DDT can be.
Angela Banner, the UK author of the
Ant and Bee little board book series, viewed insects as friends. Since the early 1960s, her books have taught children to read, count, and tell time; and to identify animals, colors, and shapes. In the book,
Around the World With Ant and Bee, her insects are globe trotters.
Of course, while some insects are friendly, others carry disease and cause crop damage around the world. As climate change and globalization spread tropical diseases that have become resistant to insecticides, British researchers now have developed genetically modified male mosquitoes that can kill the mosquito larvae of the unmodified females they mate with. To eliminate fungus-causing Dutch Elm disease, it has been necessary to cut down scores of elm trees infected by beetles. And history is filled with stories of the devastation caused by germ-carrying insects. In the
Old Testament, the Book of Exodus tells of plagues of mosquitoes, gadflies, and locusts. When children hear about the Black death; the mosquitoes that spread malaria and yellow fever; typhus; the bubonic plague; the tsetse fly that carries sleeping sickness; and lyme disease from ticks, they may want to destroy every ant hill they see. It then may be time to watch
The Ant Bully or
ANTZ to gain insight into the life of an ant or
A Bug's Life" in order to empathize with an ant colony's trouble with grasshoppers.
The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins does what it can to gain respect for beetles.
Kids can learn to respect the bees, moths, and butterflies that pollinate fruit trees and vegetable and nut plants by carrying the pollen that fertilizes the cells that produce plant seeds. Hives of 25,000 bees were valued at $83,000, when they were stolen in France in 2014. Consequently, it has been a serious problem ever since honey bees suddenly began to suffer colony-collapse disorder in 2006.
Time magazine (June 1, 2015) reports that beekeepers lost almost half of their colonies between April 2014 and April 2015.
To find chemicals to replace the neonicotinoids that kill bees with alternative sprays that control crop damage from other insects has been a challenge. Since new research also suggests the glyphosate chemical in the Roundup herbicide that is an effective weed killer in corn and soy fields has the unfortunate side effect of killing the milkweed monarch butterflies feed on during their migrations to and from Mexico every year, the search for new ways to differentiate between the control of certain insects and weeds and the protection of other endangered insects goes on.
With as much as almost a quarter of U.S. crops dependent on bee pollination, new hives have appeared in various locations, such as just off a path in the Obrich botanical garden in Madison, Wisconsin, and in the 84-acre campus arboretum at American University in Washington, D.C. In May, 2015 Washington issued a National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators that aims to restore seven million acres of the native flowers that nourish bees
Normally, hives of honeybees that are native to Europe are rented to farmers when, for example, their apple and cherry crops are in full flower. To foster experimentation with different approaches, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given a five-year research grant to the Integrated Crop Pollination Project that coordinates the work of government agencies, not-for-profit associations, and private firms. At Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Kelly Garbach lists a number of projects being tried. As disease reduces the European honeybee population, native U.S. bee species might be able to pollinate certain crops, either on their own or in combination with traditional honeybees. A
Time magazine article, "The Plight of the Honeybee" (August 19, 2013), told how researchers are trying to produce "a more resilient honeybee" by cross-breeding species. One of the reasons native bees have been overlooked is because they are very small, only half the size of European honeybees. Another reason for bee research is changing climate conditions. If bees could live full time in one location, it would be less costly and more advantageous than trying to figure the best time for beekeepers to provide them. Dr. Garbach plans to identify innovators who can mentor others who want to adopt successful new pollination practices.
In addition to bees, other insects also perform good works. Insects feed birds, and, of course, for thousands of years, silk cloth has been made from the threads that caterpillars use to make their cocoons. Some insects and birds also kill harmful bugs that feed on crops and live stock. Nonetheless, flies, fleas, ticks, lice, and mites can bother and infect animals. Beetles eat fruit trees and potatoes, and in their form as grubs, beetles eat the roots of corn, pasture grass, and strawberries. Children even may have seen clothes that have been damaged by moths and carpet beetles that eat wool.
Youngsters interested in discovering which insects are helpful and which are harmful can grow up to be the entomologists that control insect pests. Edward O. Wilson, a global expert on ants, has written the book,
Letters to a Young Scientist, that will interest and inspire future entomologists. On National Public Radio, Wilson said that he had a childhood love of "creepy-crawly things" and a passion and persistence to be a scientist who studied them. All children who have seen how fast ants appear on picnic tables can make sure they don't attract flies and other disease-carrying insects by leaving food uncovered in the house. Outside, they can make sure to throw food away only in closed garbage bins.
Farmers know vast fields planted with the same crop attract swarms of the insects that like to feed on that crop. During the early 20th century, boll weevils destroyed millions of dollars worth of the U.S. cotton crop. In their own gardens, youngsters can learn the benefit of cutting down on the attraction of insects by planting a variety of vegetables and flowers. They also might look for, or hope in the future to help develop, plants engineered to be pest-resistant. (For other innovative ideas related to crops, go to the earlier blog posts, "Back to the Land" and "A Healthy Environment.")
Artists Hubert Duprat and Kathy Kyle know just how good some insects can be. They give little moth-like caddisfly larvae, that protect themselves by constructing armor by "gluing" together gravel, sand, twigs, and other debris, gold flakes, opal, turquoise, rubies, and pearls to make beads that can be strung together into one-of-a-kind necklaces, earrings, key chains, and zipper pulls.
As a bit more practical matter, children can be on the lookout for standing water that should be drained to keep mosquitoes from breeding. Although only a handful of the world's 80,000 species of mosquitoes bite and transmit diseases, such as malaria, dengue (black bone fever), and chikungunya, these diseases are life threatening. When kids recognize the importance of protecting themselves from mosquito bites by using insect repellent when they go outside and by installing screens to keep mosquitoes out of their homes, they can start thinking about raising money to protect African children with mosquito nets. On the Internet, the key words, "mosquito nets" lead to a number of organizations that need funds to do this job. UNICEF, for example, has an "Inspired Gift" program to provide the world's poorest children with mosquito nets. Kids and adults can find details about this program at my earlier blog post, "Hope for the Future."
Singing children running through fields with arms outstretched, kids flying kites, and youngsters folding paper airplanes all are following in the tradition of inventors around the world who looked up at birds and tried to imitate their ability to fly.
