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There was little else to do but wait and see if the colony would choose us.
除了等着看蜂群是否会选择我家之外，我们什么也做不了。
I repacked our suitcase for another night away.
于是我重新收拾行李箱，准备再去别的地方住一晚。
Maybe this was my family’s small contribution to saving an imperiled species, I thought.
我想，也许这是我家为拯救一个濒危物种所做的小小贡献。
What I wish I had known then: Honeybees do not need saving.
但我希望我当时能知道：蜜蜂不需要拯救。
The same week that the bees turned up at my house, the journalist Bryan Walsh revisited a 2013 cover story for Time magazine in which he had lamented a future “world without bees.”
就在蜜蜂出现在我家的那个星期，记者布莱恩·沃尔什重新提到了2013年《时代》杂志的一篇封面故事，他在那篇报道中哀叹未来“没有蜜蜂的世界”。
Looking back, he said, the article didn’t hold up.
重新回顾这篇报道，他说，这篇文章站不住脚。
Mr. Walsh wrote in a new essay in Vox: “A lot of the coverage at the height of the beepocalypse fears — my story included — used the mass death of honeybees as a symbol of how human beings had pulled nature out of whack. But it’s not.”
沃尔什在新闻网站Vox上的一篇新文章中写道：“在蜜蜂末日恐惧情绪达到高潮时候的很多报道--包括我自己的报道--都把蜜蜂的大规模死亡看作人类破坏了自然的象征，但事实并非如此。”
Just last month, new federal data showed that the number of honeybee colonies has increased by 31 percent since 2007.
就在上个月，新的联邦数据显示，自2007年以来，蜂群的数量增加了31%。
A vast majority of those insects are used in commercial farming, carted from state to state to pollinate crops.
大多数蜜蜂被用于商业种植，人们把蜜蜂从一个州运送到另一个州给作物授粉。
A 2023 report from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation noted that honeybees are not endangered nor at risk of extinction.
薛西斯无脊椎动物保护协会2023年的一份报告指出，蜜蜂既不濒临灭绝，也不面临灭绝的危险。
“The fact that honeybees are domesticated and managed negates the possibility of being endangered.”
“蜜蜂是经过驯养和管理的，这一事实否定了它们濒临灭绝的可能性。”
Honeybees are an invasive species that were brought to the United States from Europe.
蜜蜂是从欧洲带到美国的一种入侵物种。
Saving one of their colonies can actually hurt native bees, many of which are endangered.
拯救一个蜂群实际上会伤害美国本土的蜜蜂，许多本土蜜蜂处于濒危状态。
A recent study in Montreal found that when the number of honeybee hives rose in part of the city, the number of native bees declined.
蒙特利尔最近的一项研究发现，当城市部分地区的蜂箱数量增加时，本地蜜蜂的数量就会下降。
“You are not helping a wild species” when you save a honeybee swarm, said Rich Hatfield, a senior conservation biologist at Xerces.
薛西斯的高级保护生物学家里奇·哈特菲尔德说，当你拯救一群蜜蜂时，“你并不是在帮助一个野生物种”。
“You are introducing 10,000 to 50,000 mouths to feed to an environment that may not have enough resources.”
“你是在让需要进食的1万到5万张嘴进入一个可能没有足够资源的环境中。”
The bees in my house were looking for resources.
我家里的蜜蜂就在寻找资源。
Left on our own, we cobbled together a plan to make our real estate seem as unappealing as possible.
现在只剩我们自己，于是我们拼凑了一个计划，让我们的房子看起来尽可能地没有吸引力。
We tried to sequester as many of the honeybees as possible in the attic.
我们把阁楼上的蜜蜂尽可能多地隔离起来。
It was better if they didn’t leave, the beekeepers had said, so they couldn’t go waggle to their friends.
养蜂人说，如果它们不离开会更好，这样它们就不能去给朋友跳摇摆舞。
They gravitate toward light, so we flipped on a lightbulb and watched a dozen immediately swarm around it.
蜜蜂趋光，所以我们打开了一个灯泡，看到十几只蜜蜂立即聚集在灯泡周围。
Two beekeepers gave us their blessing to kill the honeybees that had already made it into our house, suggesting a vacuum method.
两位养蜂人允许我们杀死已经进入房子的蜜蜂，并建议使用吸尘器。
Within minutes, honeybees filled our Dyson.
几分钟内，戴森吸尘器里就全是蜜蜂。
Bees are most active in the warm temperatures of late afternoon.
蜜蜂在下午晚些时候的温暖天气下最活跃。
We anxiously waited for a swarm to descend.
我们焦急地等着蜂群降临。
Around 4 p.m. we went outside and stared at the sky, just as we had a few days earlier for the solar eclipse.
下午4点左右，我们走到外面，凝视着天空，就像几天前我们为了看日食而做的那样。
The swarm never showed.
蜂群再也没有出现。
By evening, fewer bees were roaming around the house, and the attic buzzing had grown softer.
到了傍晚，在房子周围游荡的蜜蜂减少了，阁楼上的嗡嗡声也变轻了。
We slept at home with the Dyson near the bed.
我们睡在家里，戴森吸尘器就放在床边。
The next morning, my son discovered dead bees in his playroom, and the dog ate some carcasses on the floor.
第二天早上，我儿子在他的游戏室里发现了死掉的蜜蜂，地上的一些死蜜蜂被狗吃了。
Thirty-six hours after the honeybees had arrived, they were gone.
蜜蜂到达36小时后，它们就不见了。
Stunned by the bizarre experience, I called Thomas Seeley, a professor at Cornell who has studied honeybee behavior for more than 40 years.
这一奇怪的经历让我大吃一惊，于是我打电话给康奈尔大学的托马斯·西利教授，他研究蜜蜂行为已有40多年了。
Ours had been a close call, Dr. Seeley said.
西利教授说，我们侥幸逃过一劫。
The fact that a scout bee’s shimmy had convinced scores of others to check out our house meant that we were “clearly on the list of serious possibilities,” he said.
他说，一只侦察蜂的摇摆舞说服了许多其他蜜蜂来查看我们的房子，这说明我家“显然在需要重视的可能地点名单上”。
