英语听力：2013-12-15 地平线：什么害死了我们的蜜蜂—11

 -So these look terribly small, almost mistaken as mosquitoes.-Yeah, we could do, but I see them that they got two pairs of wings.

-And actually they are proper bees. How did you find them be there?

-So... Well, essentially¹ it's the h* so these small pinched waist that you can see all of these bees have that.

-They are very particular by their figure bees, don't they?

-Oh, the waist. They do a lot of flying around, burning a lot of calories. And they go out and they collect pollen² and nectar served as vegetarian³, whereas their closest relatives, wasps⁴, they are very often carnivorous. And when it comes to crop pollination⁵, these are the unsound heroes of pollination world. Honeybees do make a contribution, but actually it's the wild bees particularly, they doing the most of the work. So for instance in the UK, think about the huge areas of royal s*, beans, and apple crops, also all sorts of fruit we have, we've only got enough honeybees to pollinate an absolute maximum of a third. So who does the rest? It's these guys. They work so hard to ensure that we get everything pollinated, not just crops, but all our wild flowers. 

-Did these bees suffer from varroa?

-They don't suffer from varroa, but these guys are in real trouble, as well.

-So you are saying even if we sorted out the varroa problem, we still have a major issue on our hands?

-Absolutely.

The honeybee and hundreds of other species are rolled in decline. But those other species don't suffer from the varroa might. 

-There's no doubt that the varroa is lethal⁶ and it spread across the global over the past 50 years. It resulted in the death of billions of honeybees. In some countries, including the United States, it's been linked to the disappearance⁷ of entire colonies, what they call colony collapse⁸ disorder⁹. Here in Britain though, it's a rather different story. First start, varroa only affects honeybees not wild bees. And they've been in decline here as well for some time. And crucially it only arrived here about 20 years ago. And we know our bees have been dying off for much longer than that. So while it's true that varroa has put an added strain on the honeybees, the evidence would indicate that it is not responsible for the whole problem.

1 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

2 pollen   

n.[植]花粉

参考例句：

• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。
• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。

3 vegetarian   

n.素食者；adj.素食的

参考例句：

• She got used gradually to the vegetarian diet.她逐渐习惯吃素食。
• I didn't realize you were a vegetarian.我不知道你是个素食者。

4 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中

5 pollination   

n.授粉

参考例句：

• The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
• Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉，谷物的长势就会受阻。

6 lethal   

adj.致死的；毁灭性的

参考例句：

• A hammer can be a lethal weapon.铁锤可以是致命的武器。
• She took a lethal amount of poison and died.她服了致命剂量的毒药死了。

7 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

8 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

9 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。