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“Bumblebees are one of our common pollinators in North America and they’re very effective. They’re the classic bee that you think about that’s very hairy and charismatic. They pollinate things that we eat day to day,” says Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Rebecca Irwin in a Weather Channel story about a new study by Irwin and colleagues that found that naturally occurring chemicals found in the flowers of tobacco and other plants significantly reduce parasite infection in bees.