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Science and technology
科學技術
Bees and insecticides
蜜蜂和殺蟲劑
Subtle poison
慢性毒藥
Evidence is growing that commonly used pesticides, even when employed carefully, are bad for bees
證據逐步表明，即使小心地噴施普通殺蟲劑，也會對蜜蜂構成危害
IN THE winter of 2006 beekeepers in America noticed something odd—lots of their hives were dying for no obvious reason.
2006年冬，美國養蜂人注意到奇怪的現象，他們的蜜蜂成批死掉，原因不明。
As the months passed, reports of similar phenomena began coming in from their European counterparts.
幾個月后，類似的現象也出現在歐洲同行的報告上。
Mystified scientists coined the label colony collapse disorderto describe what was happening.
困惑的科學家們給這個現象貼上了蜂群衰竭失調的標簽。
Since then, much brow-sweat has been expended trying to work out just what CCD really is.
自那時起，為揭開CCD的面紗，人們不知道多少次抹去額頭的汗水。
Dying bees are a problem, and not just for apiarists.
蜜蜂之死不僅令養蜂家頭痛。
Bees pollinate many of the world's crops—a service estimated to be worth 15 billion a year in America alone.
蜜蜂給世界上的很多莊稼授粉，僅在美國，這種服務每年價值150億美元。
And there is no shortage of theories to explain the insects' decline,Climate change, habitat destruction, a paralysing virus, fungal infection and even a plague of parasitic mites have all been proposed.
盡管對蜜蜂數量下降的原因提出了形形色色的理論，如氣候變化、棲息地遭破壞、麻痹病毒、霉菌感染，甚至還有寄生蟲肆虐。
But one of the leading ideas is that the bees are suffering from the effects of neonicotinoids, a class of commonly used pesticides, introduced in the 1990s, which are toxic to insects but much less so to mammals.
但其中一個主導觀點是蜜蜂正在遭受新煙堿的侵害，二十世紀九十年代人們引入這種殺蟲劑，它對昆蟲有毒，但對哺乳動物的毒性較小，使用范圍廣泛。
Two papers published this week in Science lend weight to this idea.
本期科學雜志刊登的兩篇論文證實了這種觀點。
The first, from a group led by Penelope Whitehorn and David Goulson of the University of Stirling, in Britain, examined the effects these insecticides have on bumblebees, which are closely related to honeybees.
第一篇出自英國斯特林大學Penelope Whitehorn 和 David Goulson 指導的團隊，他們檢驗了這些殺蟲劑給大黃蜂帶來的影響，大黃蜂和蜜蜂的關系密切。
Bumblebees are less studied than their honeybee cousins, but they also pollinate many commonly eaten crops, including strawberries, raspberries and runner beans.
和同宗的蜜蜂比起來，對大黃蜂的研究要少一些。但它們給很多可食作物傳粉，如草莓、樹莓和紅花菜豆。
The two researchers and their colleagues raised 75 bumblebee colonies in their laboratory.
兩位研究人員和同事們在實驗室飼養了七十五個大黃蜂蜂群。
They exposed some, via contaminated pollen and sugar water, to high doses of imidacloprid, a type of neonicotinoid insecticide.
他們用受污染的花粉、糖水將一些蜂群暴露在高劑量吡蟲啉的環境里，
Others were exposed to low doses, or to no dose at all.
一些蜂群暴露在低劑量殺蟲劑的環境里，或者不加一點殺蟲劑。
Then, after two weeks of this treatment, the colonies were taken into the outside world and left there for six weeks, to see how the bees did.
接著經過兩周的處理，把這些蜂群放在室外六周，觀察蜂的行動。
All of the doses of imidacloprid, both high and low, that Dr Whitehorn gave her bees were sublethal—in other words, insufficient to kill the insects outright.
使用吡蟲啉的蜂群，無論劑量大小，Whitehorn博士把亞致死量用在她的蜜蜂上，換句話說，不足以徹底殺死昆蟲。
Firms that produce pesticides, and the authorities that regulate them, are aware of the importance of bees to food production, and new products must be tested to make sure they are not fatal to helpful insects.
殺蟲劑生產廠家和管理他們的機構意識到蜜蜂對食品生產的重要性，新產品要經過檢測，保證它們不會對有益的昆蟲造成致命傷害。
But Dr Whitehorn found that even non-lethal doses of pesticide were bad for bees.
但Whitehorn博士發現即使非致命性殺蟲劑也會對蜜蜂有害。
Both the high-dose and the low-dose colonies grew more slowly than the undosed ones, gaining 8-12% less weight on average.
受到高劑量和低劑量殺蟲劑影響的蜂群和沒有受殺蟲劑影響的同類比起來長得要慢。體重平均降低8-12%。
More importantly, the pesticides drastically inhibited the production of queens, which are needed to establish new nests each spring.
最重要的是，殺蟲劑強烈地影響到春季筑造新巢所需的蟻后的生產。
The undosed colonies produced 13.7 queens, on average.
未受殺蟲劑影響的蜂群產生13.7個蟻后。
Those given a small dose of insecticide produced two.
受低劑量影響的蜂群產生兩個，
Those given a high dose produced just 1.4.
受高劑量殺蟲劑影響的蜂群產生1.4個。
Worryingly, even colonies given the high dose may have got off lightly compared with their wild brethren.
令人憂心的是，即便受高劑量殺蟲劑影響的蜂群可能要比它們在野外的同伴受到的危害低一些。
The researchers note that another British study found levels of imidacloprid in rape crops that were seven times higher than the food supplied by the researchers.
研究人員指出另一個英國研究項目發現油菜作物里的吡蟲啉含量要比研究人員提供的食物里的吡蟲啉含量高七倍。
Dr Whitehorn's paper does not propose a mechanism by which pesticides do their damage.
博士Whitehorn的論文沒有說明殺蟲劑實施破壞的方法。
But the second study, by a group led by Mickal Henry at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, in Avignon, may shed some light on the matter.
由法國國家農業研究院的Mickal Henry帶隊實施的第二項研究可能這個事情帶來曙光。
Inspired by previous laboratory-based work, which had suggested that sublethal doses of neonicotinoids damage honeybees' memories, their ability to forage, and their ability to navigate back to their hive afterwards, Dr Henry decided to conduct some tests in the wild.
先前實驗室工作表明亞致死劑量的新煙堿會損害蜜蜂的記憶、它們的覓食能力和它們返回蜂群的能力，受此啟發，Henry博士決定在野外做一些測試。
To that end, he and his colleagues glued tiny radio transmitters to the thoraxes of worker bees.
為此，他和同事們將微型無線電廣播發射機系在工蜂的胸前。
These triggered a detector on the hive whenever a worker bearing one returned from a foraging trip.
在工蜂覓食返回的途中，會在蜂群里觸發探測器。
Some hives were given realistic doses of thiamtethoxam, a variety of neonicotinoid, while others were left alone.
給一些蜂群用一定劑量的阿克泰，其他的則不用，
Dr Henry found that around twice as many treated bees as untreated ones failed to return to the hive.
Henry博士發現用藥的不能返巢的蜜蜂數量是沒有用藥的兩倍。
That, mathematical models indicate, might easily cause a hive to collapse.
所以數學模型更容易的顯示出一個蜂群的瓦解。
Colony club
蜂群俱樂部
Moreover, even if it did not do so alone, it could be a contributing factor.
此外，如果沒有單獨做這些工作，這會是一個起作用的因素。
Many researchers believe the label colony collapse disorder covers a multitude of problems; that would account for the long list of possible causes.
很多研究人員相信蜂群衰竭失調涵蓋了很多問題，可以列出很多原因。
But neonicotinoids have the explanatory virtue of being a fairly recent development and also one which, as these two pieces of work suggest, could be a common factor in weakening a colony without actually pushing it over the edge.
但是新煙堿在最近的研究和這兩項工作中做給出了解釋，它是在沒有外部因素的作用下削弱蜂群的一個原因。
The killer blow would then be administered by something else: a mite infestation, perhaps, or a fungal infection, or whatever else happened to turn up that a healthy hive would have shrugged off.
以下原因也可以被視為蜂群殺手如寄生蟲肆虐、霉菌感染，或者導致蜂群健康降低的其他事情。
A paper published earlier this year in Naturwissenschaften, for example, showed that even small doses of neonicotinoids weakened bees' resistance to Nosema, a common fungal parasite.
今年早些時候自然科學雜志刊登的一篇論文說小劑量的新煙堿削弱蜜蜂對小孢子蟲的抵抗力。
A few countries, including France, Germany and Slovenia, have already restricted the use of neonicotinoids because of worries about their effects on bees.
包括法國、德國和斯洛文尼亞在內的一些國家已經限制了新鹽堿的使用，他們擔心這種殺蟲劑會給蜜蜂造成影響。
It would help other places that are thinking of following suit if more realistic trials were conducted in the future, in conditions that mimic nature as closely as possible in the way that these two experiments have done.
這有助于其他地方考慮是否要在將來在模擬自然環境的條件和以上兩個試驗的條件盡可能接近的條件下更多的實際試驗。
That might be more expensive than the present way of doing things, in which tests are mostly confined to laboratories and are concerned with finding out how much insecticide is needed to kill bees outright.
試驗受實驗室的約束，并且為了能知道多大劑量才能殺死蜜蜂，花費可能要比當前昂貴。
But the growing evidence that insecticides damage bees in subtle ways means it would be money well spent.
越來越多的證據表明殺蟲劑對蜜蜂的損害是慢性的，所以這個錢值得花。
