VOA标准英语2010年-Honeybees Still Disappearing in the US

Honeybees, which are very important to agriculture, continue to disappear at alarming rates in the United States. And the cause of this disappearance¹ is still elusive². While at least one recent study seems to point to pesticides⁴ as the problem, the US Agriculture Department has also found parasites⁵ causing general weakness among bee colonies. 

Beekeepers around the country are struggling to keep their honeybees alive.  According to the US Department of Agriculture the losses around the country are between 50 and 90 percent.

"Our losses for the last couple of years have averaged better than 60 percent a year," David Hackenberg stated. He is one of the largest beekeepers on the East Coast of the United States. He has worked with bees for the last 48 years. He blames the disappearance of his bees on pesticides.

"The farmers, the horticulture people, the gardeners are pouring out all kinds of chemicals out here on the field, going in our soil and the stuff is coming back up in the plants," he said. "The unfortunate thing about this is that if this stuff is getting in the plants is also getting in the food."

 

Hackenberg says the problem is especially evident in the wax the bees produce. "The wax absorbs most of the stuff.  The wax is just full of pesticides," he said.

During the winter Hackenberg moves most of his bees to Florida.  As the spring comes in, he starts traveling north towards Pennsylvania with the bees, renting them to farmers, for weeks at a time, to pollinate all types of crops.  About a third of the U.S. food supply, in fact, comes from crops that are pollinated by insects. "Our bees move about 12,000 miles (19,000 kilometers) a year on the back of a truck," he explained.

Bees fly free during the day and then return to their hive at night.  That is when Hackenberg packs them back into the trucks and moves on to the next crop.

The mysterious disappearance of bees began about seven years ago in the U.S. and Europe.  Eventually the phenomenon was labeled "colony collapse⁶ disorder," or "CCD."  But while they now have a name for it, scientists still do not have a clear explanation for the problem.

At the U.S. Agriculture Department's bee research lab in Maryland, Jeff Pettis is the research leader.

"We think there is some group of interaction between things like poor nutrition, pesticide³ exposure and pathogens.  So I would point to those three things as adding enough stress to the colony that then that colony is susceptible⁷ to the pathogens to the viruses and bacteria."

Pennsylvania State University recently released the results of a large study on honeybees.  It found an average of six different pesticides in the honey, wax and dead bees that were studied.  Some samples had more than 80.  Pettis participated in the research. "What we found was that there were a variety of pesticides that were in the pollen⁸, the wax and the bees themselves," he says, "so there was a lot of exposure."

While most studies are designed to show the effects of one pesticide at a time, research into combinations of pesticides is just beginning.

"Penn State, the lab here, several labs around the country are beginning to combine different pesticides together and look at the synergy of it as it goes on," Pettis said.

Pettis says no research has yet shown enough evidence to declare pesticides as the only reason the bees are disappearing.  He says the bee colonies that have collapsed⁹ show high disease levels, but scientists have not been able to explain how that happens. "The only clear signal that we see is that when the bees die they have high levels of viruses and pathogens," he explained.

Research indicates that poor nutrition among bees is mostly due to large fields of single crops, which leave the bees without enough variety in their diet. There are other theories as well, but all of them seem to point in the same direction as David Hackenberg's outlook:

"I don't think the future is good," Hackenberg says, "It's going to take a long time to clean up our environment.  We contaminated our environment to the point that is going to take a long time to reverse it."

Report narrated by Elizabeth Lee

 

1 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。

2 elusive   

adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的

参考例句：

• Try to catch the elusive charm of the original in translation.翻译时设法把握住原文中难以捉摸的风韵。
• Interpol have searched all the corners of the earth for the elusive hijackers.国际刑警组织已在世界各地搜查在逃的飞机劫持者。

3 pesticide   

n.杀虫剂，农药

参考例句：

• The pesticide was spread over the vegetable plot.菜田里撒上了农药。
• This pesticide is diluted with water and applied directly to the fields.这种杀虫剂用水稀释后直接施用在田里。

4 pesticides   

n.杀虫剂( pesticide的名词复数 )；除害药物

参考例句：

• vegetables grown without the use of pesticides 未用杀虫剂种植的蔬菜
• There is a lot of concern over the amount of herbicides and pesticides used in farming. 人们对农业上灭草剂和杀虫剂的用量非常担忧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 parasites   

寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫

参考例句：

• These symptoms may be referable to virus infection rather than parasites. 这些症状也许是由病毒感染引起的，而与寄生虫无关。
• Kangaroos harbor a vast range of parasites. 袋鼠身上有各种各样的寄生虫。

6 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。

7 susceptible   

adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的

参考例句：

• Children are more susceptible than adults.孩子比成人易受感动。
• We are all susceptible to advertising.我们都易受广告的影响。

8 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。

9 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。