Use the article excerpt to answer the question. "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. 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. Use the RACE method: Restate, Answer, Cite, Explain (4 points)

Answer 1

Inference: Future efforts to save bee populations may need to focus on balancing habitat restoration with disease management strategies.

Restate: It is clear from the article that both planting flowers and managing bee populations effectively are crucial for bee conservation.

Answer: The excerpt suggests that while planting bee-friendly flowers is important, it can inadvertently contribute to the spread of diseases among bee populations.

Cite: For instance, Sheila Colla mentions, “Maybe we need to have a [buffer] area without flowers to stop diseases from spreading to wild bees,” indicating that planting strategies must be reconsidered.

Explain: This indicates a need for careful planning in conservation efforts; simply increasing flower availability could exacerbate disease issues rather than alleviate the problems faced by both wild and commercial bee populations. Researchers like Alger are exploring ways to enhance plant diversity and potentially remove certain plants to mitigate disease transmission, suggesting an integrated approach to bee conservation that addresses both habitat needs and health concerns.