Part A :

How will you know if Asian bees have entered Australia?

你怎么知道亚洲蜜蜂已经进入澳大利亚?

We're looking at the diet of the bird called the Rainbow Bee Eater.

我们看叫做Rainbow Bee Eater的鸟的饮食。

The Bee Eater doesn't care what it eats, as long as they're insects.

它们不关心自己吃什么，只要是昆虫就好。

But the interesting thing about this bird is that we are able to analyse exactly what it eats and that's really helpful if we're looking for introduced insects.

非常有趣的是，我们能够准确地分析这种乌吃了什么，这对于我们寻找引进的昆虫是非常有用的。

How come?

为什么啊?

Because insects have their skeletons outside their bodies, so the Bee Eaters digest the meat from the inside.

因为昆虫的身体外有骨骼保护，所以Bee Eaters吃里面的肉。

Then they bring up all the indigestible bits of skeleton and, of course, the wings in a pellet-a small ball of waste material which they cough up.

然后他们会咳出不能消化的骨架，当然还有球状翅膀。

That sounds a bit unpleasant.

听起来有点恶心。

So, how do you go about it?

那么，你是怎么着手去做的呢?

In the field we track down the Bee Eaters and find their favourite feeding spots, you know, the places where the birds usually feed.

在这一领域里，我们追捕Bee Eaters，并发现它们最喜欢的觅食点，你知道的，它们通常吃东西的地点。

It's here that we can find the pellets.

就是在这里，我们找到了小球。

We collect them up and take them back to the laboratory to examine the contents.

我们把小球收集起来，并带回到实验室检查小球成分。

How do you do that?

你是怎么做到的?

The pellets are really hard, especially if they have been out in the sun for a few days so, first of all, we treat them by adding water to moisten them and make them softer.

小球真的很硬，特别是如果它们已经在太阳底下晒了几天，所以首先，我们加入水来滋润它们，让它们更加柔软。

Then we pull them apart under the microscope.

然后，我们在显微镜下把它们分开。

Everything's all scrunched up but we're looking for wings so we just pull them all out and straighten them.

一切都揉成一团了，但我们要寻找翅膀，所以我们只是把它们全部拿出来拉直

Then we identify them to see if we can find any Asian bee wings.

然后，我们仔细看看，找不找得到任何亚洲蜜蜂的翅膀。

And how many have you found?

你现在发现了多少?

So far our research shows that Asian bees have not entered Australia in any number -it's a good result and much more reliable than trying to find live ones as evidence of introduced insects.

到目前为止，我们的研究表明，没有亚洲蜜蜂进入澳大利亚一这是一个很好的成果，作为引进昆虫的证据，这个方式比找到活的亚洲蜜蜂更为可靠。

Well, that's fascinating!

好吧，那很吸引人!

Thank you, Grant, for those insights.

谢谢你，Grant，可以给出这些见解。

I hope that you might inspire some of our students here to conduct some similar experiments.

我希望你能激励我们的一些学生在这里做一些类似的实验。