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Feature
"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.
Question
Use the article excerpt to answer the question.
What evidence from the text best supports the inference that people have been more concerned with the health of honeybees than wild bumblebees in recent years? Select the two correct answers.
(1 point)
Responses
Some species of bumblebees have declined up to 96 percent locally.
New research shows that honeybee diseases may be spilling over to wild bumblebees.
Bumblebee die-offs may be increasing because of efforts to save honeybees.
People are more familiar with honeybee die-offs.
The causes of bumblebee die-offs have been largely understudied.
1 answer
The two pieces of evidence from the text that best support the inference that people have been more concerned with the health of honeybees than wild bumblebees in recent years are:
These statements suggest that there is greater public awareness and concern regarding honeybee health, while the health issues facing wild bumblebees have not received the same level of attention.
