From the excerpt, one can infer that future efforts to save bee populations may need to focus on managing the interaction between commercial and wild bees more effectively. The text highlights the dual transmission of diseases between these populations, as indicated by Scott McArt's statement, “It’s likely the transmission is going both ways,” suggesting that any strategies to protect bees must consider the risks associated with the sharing of pathogens. Additionally, Sheila Colla's suggestion of potentially needing “a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees” implies that simply increasing flowering plants may not be sufficient; targeted management practices are necessary. This indicates that conservation efforts will likely need to be more nuanced, possibly combining habitat restoration with disease control measures to effectively mitigate the risks associated with bee interactions.
Are Commercial Honeybees Making Wild Bees Sick?"
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.
Question: 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.
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