"Lost in Interpretation"

The best response is:

**A good sign language interpreter can be very helpful to a deaf audience, but a bad sign language interpreter can ruin an experience.**

This choice encapsulates the article's main focus on the impact of sign language interpretation on the deaf community, highlighting the contrast between skilled interpreters like Barbie Parker and the detrimental effects of poor interpreting, as exemplified by the situation with Thamsanqa Jantjie at Mandela's memorial.

"Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?"

by Berly McCoy

Everyone wants to save the bees. But as populations decline every year, we may be saving them to death.

Human efforts to breed more of these insects in artificial beehives and plant more flowers may seem the obvious way to stave off heavy losses.

New research shows the answer is not that clear cut, because viruses may be spilling over from commercial honeybee colonies into wild bee populations, according to a study from the University of Vermont published Wednesday in PLOS One. Like honeybees, which are invaluable for agriculture, wild bumblebees also play a significant role in crop pollination. Though people are more familiar with honeybee die-offs — such as with colony collapse disorder — wild bumblebees have been struggling too. A handful of bumblebee species have declined by up to 96 percent in the U.S., according to the National Agricultural Library’s website.

The causes have been largely understudied, although pesticides, infectious disease and shrinking habitat due to climate change have been suspected, said Samantha Alger, an ecologist from the University of Vermont who led the new research. Filling in one piece of the puzzle, the study revealed wild bumblebees pick up more viruses the closer they forage to managed honeybee colonies. But if bumblebees don’t venture into the commercial hives, how are they picking up viruses?

Flowers have been suspected as reservoirs for bee viruses, but no researcher had linked virus deposits on flowers to bumblebee infections in the wild until this study. And the results could have implications for how we lend our inter-species help.

What the scientists did

The team plucked wild bumblebees from 19 sites around northern Vermont. Some sites were close to a commercial apiary — within 0.2 miles or a short city block — while others were farther away — at least 0.6 miles. If honeybees were present, the researchers collected them too. The team then measured the number of viruses stuck to each bee. Just because an animal has a virus on its outside doesn’t mean it has an infection. You may have touched your friend’s influenza-soaked tissue, but washed your hands before the flu infected you. So the researchers also tested each bee for virus genetic material, which is only made once the virus infects a host.

The team looked at two viruses — deformed wing virus and black queen cell virus — both of which infect honeybees and bumblebees. These infections can potentially cause significant colony damage in honeybees, but researchers don’t know yet what they do to bumblebee colonies.

To figure out how honeybee viruses are jumping to bumblebees, the researchers collected flower samples. Back in the lab, they tested ground-up flowers for viruses and mapped how close the contaminated flowers were to apiaries. They suspected that bees shed virus pieces on flowers during foraging. What they found

All of the honeybee colonies tested by the researchers were positive for both viruses, an unfortunate but common occurrence for commercial colonies.

But the number of wild bumblebees carrying viruses varied depending on the proximity to the domesticated hives. There was also variation between the two viruses.

More than 90 percent of bumblebees collected close to apiaries carried black queen cell virus. In sites farther from apiaries, and where no honeybees were foraging, just under 40 percent were positive for this virus. When the researchers checked for actual infections, they found that the proximity to an apiary wasn’t telling of whether a bumblebee was infected with black queen cell virus. That means sites near and far from a commercial beehive had the same abundance of black queen cell virus infections. The connection was clearer for deformed wing virus infections. Twenty percent of bumblebees foraging close to apiaries carried the virus on their outsides and 10 percent had active infections. But in sites more than a half mile away from an apiary, where honeybees were absent, not a single bumblebee tested positive for deformed wing virus — as a carrier or with an infection..

When the researchers looked at infected flowers, they noticed a similar trend. Of the 20 percent of flowers that tested positive for viruses, all were picked close to apiaries. And the denser the flower patch in these areas, the higher the rate of deformed wing virus infection in bumblebees.

Why it matters

If human-managed bees and bee-friendly flowers are acting as hotspots for pathogens, keeping more bees and planting more flowers may be contributing to the steep losses in commercial pollinators seen in the U.S. each year, as well as fueling the decline of wild bees. The more that bees are transported and concentrated for larger-scale pollination events, the more opportunities for diseases to spread. And it’s not just a one-way street.

“It’s likely the transmission is going both ways,” said Scott McArt, a pollinator ecologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. Even if diseases in commercial bees are eliminated, new infections from the wild bee population, which are known to harbor pathogens, could spill back into managed populations, making disease eradication even tougher than it is now.

From the urban gardener to the rural farmer, people are encouraged to grow “bee-friendly” plants. “But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers,” said Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist at York University who was not involved in the study. “Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees.”

Nobody is suggesting we stop planting flowers altogether. “We know that habitat loss is already a big problem for bees,” said Alger. Instead, she’s now investigating
if increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission.

She added that beekeepers and farmers need to take a long, hard look at how they are managing bees. Use the article to answer the question.

How does the “What they found” section refine the central idea?

(1 point)
Responses

It provides additional nuance that helps readers understand how complex the issue is.
It provides additional nuance that helps readers understand how complex the issue is.

It uncovers the specifics of what makes wild bees sick and answers the question in the title.
It uncovers the specifics of what makes wild bees sick and answers the question in the title.

It suggests the author’s initial claims were not completely accurate and adjusts them.
It suggests the author’s initial claims were not completely accurate and adjusts them.

It reveals the advances that have been made on the topic since the studies began.

The best response is:

**It provides additional nuance that helps readers understand how complex the issue is.**

This choice accurately reflects how the "What they found" section elaborates on the relationship between honeybee viruses and wild bumblebee populations, including specific data on infection rates depending on proximity to apiaries. It shows the complexities of disease transmission between managed and wild bees, refining the central idea without definitively answering it or suggesting the author's initial claims were incorrect.

"Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?"

by Berly McCoy

If human-managed bees and bee-friendly flowers are acting as hotspots for pathogens, keeping more bees and planting more flowers may be contributing to the steep losses in commercial pollinators seen in the U.S. each year, as well as fueling the decline of wild bees. The more that bees are transported and concentrated for larger-scale pollination events, the more opportunities for diseases to spread.

And it’s not just a one-way street.

“It’s likely the transmission is going both ways,” said Scott McArt, a pollinator ecologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. Even if diseases in commercial bees are eliminated, new infections from the wild bee population, which are known to harbor pathogens, could spill back into managed populations, making disease eradication even tougher than it is now.

From the urban gardener to the rural farmer, people are encouraged to grow “bee-friendly” plants.
“But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers,” said Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist at York University who was not involved in the study. “Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees.”

Nobody is suggesting we stop planting flowers altogether. “We know that habitat loss is already a big problem for bees,” said Alger. Instead, she’s now investigating if increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission.

She added that beekeepers and farmers need to take a long, hard look at how they are managing bees.
Use the article excerpt to answer the question.

It is possible to infer from this excerpt something about future efforts to save the bees. What inference can you make? In 3–5 sentences, state your inference and provide strong and thorough textual evidence from the excerpt to support the inference.

(4 points)

From the excerpt, it can be inferred that future efforts to save bee populations may need to reconsider current practices related to bee-friendly gardening and flower planting. While promoting the growth of flowers is generally encouraged to support bee populations, the excerpt highlights the concern that these actions could inadvertently increase disease transmission among bees. Sheila Colla's statement, “But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers,” suggests the need for caution and strategic planning in how flowers are used to support bee habitats. Furthermore, Samantha Alger's ongoing investigation into “increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants” indicates that a more nuanced approach may be necessary to balance habitat restoration with disease management, signaling a shift in strategy for conservation efforts moving forward.

"Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?"

by Berly McCoy

If human-managed bees and bee-friendly flowers are acting as hotspots for pathogens, keeping more bees and planting more flowers may be contributing to the steep losses in commercial pollinators seen in the U.S. each year, as well as fueling the decline of wild bees. The more that bees are transported and concentrated for larger-scale pollination events, the more opportunities for diseases to spread.

And it’s not just a one-way street.

“It’s likely the transmission is going both ways,” said Scott McArt, a pollinator ecologist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study. Even if diseases in commercial bees are eliminated, new infections from the wild bee population, which are known to harbor pathogens, could spill back into managed populations, making disease eradication even tougher than it is now.

From the urban gardener to the rural farmer, people are encouraged to grow “bee-friendly” plants.
“But in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers,” said Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist at York University who was not involved in the study. “Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees.”

Nobody is suggesting we stop planting flowers altogether. “We know that habitat loss is already a big problem for bees,” said Alger. Instead, she’s now investigating if increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission.

She added that beekeepers and farmers need to take a long, hard look at how they are managing bees.
Use the article excerpt to answer the question.

It is possible to infer from this excerpt something about future efforts to save the bees. What inference can you make? In 6-8 sentences, state your inference and provide strong and thorough textual evidence from the excerpt to support the inference.

From the excerpt, it can be inferred that future efforts to save bee populations will need to adopt a more comprehensive and cautious approach that considers the potential negative impacts of current bee conservation strategies, particularly the planting of bee-friendly flowers. Although increasing floral resources is widely recognized as beneficial for supporting bee populations, the excerpt raises concerns that such efforts can inadvertently lead to higher disease transmission among both commercial and wild bee populations. Scott McArt’s assertion that “transmission is going both ways” emphasizes the complexity of the issue, indicating that diseases from wild populations may also reinfect commercial bees, complicating eradication efforts.

Sheila Colla’s comments support this inference by suggesting that there may be a need for “a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees,” highlighting the necessity of reevaluating how and where floral resources are cultivated. Furthermore, Samantha Alger’s exploration of strategies such as “increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants” illustrates that conservation efforts must become more sophisticated and tailored to mitigate disease risks effectively. The excerpt also emphasizes the urgency for beekeepers and farmers to critically examine their bee management practices. This overall perspective indicates that while the importance of habitat restoration remains, future conservation efforts will likely require a careful balance between promoting healthy environments for bees and preventing disease spread that threatens both commercial and wild populations.