Question

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

Answer 1

Inference: Future efforts to save bee populations may need to prioritize a more thoughtful approach to habitat management, including plant selection and disease monitoring in both commercial and wild bee populations.

Restate: Future conservation strategies might require a shift in how we manage the habitats we create for bees to effectively combat disease transmission among populations.

Answer: The excerpt suggests that simply increasing the number of bee-friendly plants may inadvertently contribute to disease spread, necessitating more strategic habitat management.

Cite: The text states that “in some cases you might actually be increasing disease levels when you plant those flowers,” indicating that the introduction of certain flowers could be problematic for bee health. Additionally, it notes that “increasing plant diversity, or culling certain plants could help decrease disease transmission,” showing a proactive approach to managing habitats.

Explain: This highlights the importance of carefully considering which plants are introduced into environments where bees thrive and suggests that managing these habitats could play a crucial role in reducing disease spread and protecting both commercial and wild bee populations. Conservation biologists are already exploring these strategies, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach that addresses both habitat loss and pathogen management.