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👑 今日主題：Colony collapse disorder / 蜂群崩壞症候群

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🎁 中英文稿：
Science and technology 科學技術
Colony collapse disorder 蜂群崩壞症候群
Bee off 蜂群崩壞
A possible explanation of why beehives sometimes vanish
有可能解釋清楚為什麼蜂群有時會突然死亡
HONEYBEES are sensitive creatures.
蜜蜂是一種敏感的生物，
From time to time a hive simply gives up the ghost and vanishes.
時不時就有蜂巢憑空消失。
Colony collapse disorder, as this phenomenon is known, has been getting worse since 2006.
這種現象被稱為蜂群崩壞症候群，自2006年開始就愈發嚴重了。
Some beekeepers worry that it may make their trade impossible, and could even have an effect on agriculture.
有些養蜂人擔心這會使得他們的生意難以維持下去，甚至會對農業造成影響。
Since many crops rely on bees to pollinate them.
因為很多莊稼依靠蜜蜂授粉。
Climate change, habitat destruction, pesticides and disease have all been suggested as possible causes.
氣候變化、棲息地被破壞、殺蟲劑的使用和疾病都是可能的原因。
Nothing, though, has been proved.
但是尚無一者得到證實。
But the latest idea, reported in Naturwissenschaften by Jeff Pettis of the Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, suggests that this may be because more than one factor is involved.
最新的想法刊登在《自然科學》雜誌上，作者是位於馬里蘭貝茨維爾的蜜蜂研究實驗室的傑夫佩蒂斯，他說可能的原因也許不止一個。
Dr Pettis and his colleagues knew from previous reports that exposure to a pesticide, called imidacloprid has a bad effect on honeybees' ability to learn things, and wondered whether it might be causing other, less noticeable, damage.
佩蒂斯博士和他的同事們從之前的報告中得知接觸到一種殺蟲劑，這種叫做吡蟲啉的會影響蜜蜂的學習能力，他們懷疑這種殺蟲劑還對蜜蜂造成其他不太明顯的傷害。
Since one thing common to colonies that go on to collapse seems to be a greater variety and higher load of parasites and pathogens than other colonies,
要死亡的蜂群有一個共同點，就是蜂群裡所含的寄生蟲和病原體的種類和數量比一般蜂群的都多，
they wondered in particular whether it might be weakening the insects' immune systems,
他們特別懷疑是吡蟲啉削弱了蜜蜂的免疫系統，
and thus allowing infections to spread through a hive.
進而使得傳染病在蜂巢裡擴散開來。
To find out, they gave 20 hives protein food in the other ten it was 20 ppb.
為了證實猜測，佩蒂斯博士和同事們把加了吡蟲啉的蛋白食物喂給20個蜂群。
Previous experiments have shown that neither dose perceptibly harms bees.
之前的實驗顯示這兩種劑量對蜜蜂都沒有明顯的傷害。
A further ten hives were given unspiked food as a control.
還有10個蜂群作為控制組，餵它們的食物未加殺蟲劑。
Then, when the young bees emerged a few weeks later, Dr Pettis collected them and fed them with spores of a fungal parasite called Nosema.
幾週後，幼蜂出生，佩蒂斯博士把它們收集起來，餵它們真菌寄生蟲小孢子蟲的孢子。
Twelve days later, he killed them and estimated the extent of their infestation.
12天後，他把這些幼蜂都殺了並測量它們體內感染程度。
Both of the groups that had been exposed to imidacloprid harboured an average of 700,000 parasite spores in each bee.
接觸到吡蟲啉的兩組蜜蜂每隻體內寄生孢子的平均數量是700000。
Bees from the control colonies, by contrast, harboured fewer than 200,000 spores in their bodies.
與之對比，控制組的蜜蜂體內則含不到200000個孢子。
The insecticide, in other words, was exposing bees to infestation, and thus to a much greater chance of dying prematurely.
換句話說，這種殺蟲劑使蜜蜂更容易受到感染，因而早亡的幾率更大。
Whether this is actually the reason for colonies collapsing remains to be determined.
至於這是不是就是蜂群崩壞症候症的真正原因還有待進一步證實。
But it is a plausible hypothesis, and is likely to get beekeepers buzzing with interest.
但是它的確是一個說得通的假設，養蜂人也會對此很感興趣。