【原版杂志阅读】Day 12 : 《科学美国人》How to Avoid Bee-Swarm Attacks

讲义片段：

SummerSafety: How to Avoid Bee-Swarm Attacks

Hard as it may be to resist, do not swat at thebees that come at you

On a late May morning a pair of young hikers were walkingalong a popular desert trail near Mesa, Ariz., when they heard the buzzing of honeybees.The hikers, Alex and Sonya, were unaware that they had happened upon anextraordinarily large hive, which experts later estimated contained about50,000 Africanized honeybees.The bees gather nectar from the carpet of wildflowers that covers the desertfloor, peaking in May and June, supporting colonies that quickly grow from afew thousand individuals to 10,000 bees or more.

The bees would not have begun stinging immediately,according to Carl Olson, an entomologist at the University of Arizona.“Honeybees are pretty good at warning people away,” he says. “Just as arattlesnake will vibrate its tail as a warning, the first honeybees out of ahive will bump the person invading, saying ‘Leave!’.”

Sonya, who lived and often hiked in the area, had movedfarther down the trail and took off running. But Alex, a visitor from NorthDakota, may have swatted the bees. Swatting is a natural human reaction, butarm-waving and slapping at bees can turn a chance encounter into an attack,says Justin Schmidt, aninsect behaviorist at the Tucson-based Southwest Biological Institute andauthor of the recently published book, The Sting of the Wild.

 

 

一、  词汇部分

1.       Swarm/swɔːrm/ n. 群

英文释义：a large group of insects all moving together:

常见搭配：a swarm of bees/wasps/ants/locusts

 

l   词汇助记：

1）s + warm –所有的个体具体在一起，取暖——一群。

 

2.       hive/haɪv/ n. 蜂房

英文释义：a structure where bees live, especially a beehive or the group ofbees living there

 

l   词汇助记：

1）类比：hive/live

2）联系：h—house

 

3.       nectar/ˈnek.tɚ/ n. 花蜜

英文释义：a sweet liquid produced by flowers and collected by bees and otherinsects

 

l   词汇助记：

1）词根：nect- 连接

2）后缀：-ar 名词后缀

 

 

4.       entomology/ˌen.t̬əˈmɑː.lə.dʒi/ n. 昆虫学

英文释义：the scientific study of insects

 

l   词汇助记：

1）词根：entom-昆虫

 

5.       invade/ɪnˈveɪd/ v. 侵略

英文释义：to enter a place in large numbers, usually when unwanted and inorder to take possession or do damage

 

l   词汇助记：

1）词根：in- 向内

2）词根：vad- 走

3）扩展：evade 逃走

 

 

 

二、  句子理解

Hard as it may be to resist,do not swat at the bees that come at you

 

1）知识点：as 词性 ＋ 让步状语从句。

l   概念

l   结构

 

　　

u  形容词 + as / though + 主语 + 动词 

例1: Successful as he is，he is not proud. 他虽然成功，但不骄傲。

例2: Improbable as it seems，it’s true. 虽然看起来不太可能，但却是真的。

例3: Stupid as it sounds，I was so in love with her that I believed her. 尽管听起来很愚蠢，我是如此爱她竟然相信了她的话。

　　

　　

2. The bees gather nectarfrom the carpet of wildflowers that covers the desert floor, peaking in May andJune, supporting colonies that quickly grow from a few thousand individuals to10,000 bees or more.

 

1）知识点：主句

主句：The bees gather nectar from the carpet ofwildflowers

 

2）知识点：定语从句

定语从句：that covers the desert floor

识别标准：名词 ＋that， 并列that在后面从句做主语或者宾语。

 

3）知识点：插入语

插入语：peaking in May and June

 

4）知识点：分词做状语 + 定语从句

状语：supporting colonies that quickly grow from a few thousandindividuals to 10,000 bees or more.

识别：完整句子，doing sth.

 

参考翻译：这些蜜蜂从地毯般覆盖着这片沙漠的野花上采蜜，五月和六月最盛，使得蜂群迅速的从几千只增长到一万只甚至更多。

 

 

三、  段落参考翻译

 

在五月底的一个早晨，一对年轻的背包客正行走在亚利桑那州梅萨附近的一片受欢迎的沙漠小径上，这时他们听到了蜜蜂的嗡嗡声。这两个背包客亚历克斯和桑娅还没有意识到他们偶然遇到了一个非常大的蜂巢，这个蜂巢后来被证实包含有大概50000只非洲蜂。这些蜜蜂从地毯般覆盖着这片沙漠的野花上采蜜，五月和六月最盛，使得蜂群迅速的从几千只增长到一万只甚至更多。

 

据亚利桑那州大学的昆虫学家卡尔·奥尔森说，蜜蜂们不会立刻开始蜇人。“蜜蜂很擅长警告人们远离它们，”他说，“像响尾蛇会拍打尾巴作为警告一样，第一只蜂巢外的蜜蜂会撞击入侵的人并且说‘离开！’。”

 

桑娅住在这里并且经常在这里远足，她沿着小路走的更远并且开始跑。但是亚历克斯是从北达科他州来的游客,他可能会拍打蜜蜂们。拍打是人类的自然反应，但是挥舞胳膊和拍打蜜蜂会将一次偶遇变成一场攻击，贾斯汀•施密特说，他是图森西南生物研究所的一名昆虫行为学家并且是最近出版的《野性的刺痛》一书的作者。