Bees And Cell Phones Don't Play Well Together?

[NatCh]

I know, you're wondering what in the world bees have to do with Cell Phones, and why am I posting about it on MobileRead? Well, the first point will answer itself, but I'd like to comment on the second now. I figure 'they' have been trying to find something to blame Cell Phones for (brain tumors, impotence, and now mass insecticide) for some time, and I think, as a Cell user, that it's a good idea to keep up with such things, especially if one of them should turn out to actually be true.

Okay, so here's the, um ... buzz: folks are paying more attention to something called "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD) which may indeed be becoming more widespread -- no one seems to want to say it is becoming more widespread, they're just asking the question. The reason folks care is of course that bees are rather important to crops as pollinating agents, and even gizmologists rather like to eat.

Enter a study from German researchers (led by a Prof. Jochen Kuhn of Landau University) that found that EMF radiation in the 900 to 1800 MHz range would dissuade bees from returning to their hives (if the source was placed near the hives), he also found some suggestion of some residual effect on the bees' ability to navigate even after the EMF was removed.

However, most bee-keepers don't seem to put much stock in the Cell theory, as there are apparently a large number of other things known to kill off hives which they consider more likely culprits.

What's CCD, you ask? Well in a nutshell (the Wiki link above is a good source for the non-nutshell version), all the adult bees just leave the hive and don't come back. They don't die in or around it, they go away, and presumably die singly elsewhere. Here's the interesting thing about it, though, and the main thing that makes me, personally, skeptical of the Cell Phone theory: apparently the hives get left alone, empty of adult bees (save for the Queen), but full of honey, for quite some time before anything comes along to eat that honey.

Now, I could see how the EMF might run the bees off, and maybe even keep them from coming back, but how does it keep the bears away for so long? And, does this phenomenon suggest that carrying a cell while hiking would reduce your risk of getting stung? Mauled by a grizzly?


I looked at several articles to put this together, so I'm just going to link to the whole list: for further reading. Note that while most of them refer to Cell Phones int their headlines, they mostly focus on other aspects of the story in their texts.

[Bob Russell]

A lot of the hysteria seems to come from the fear of a chain reaction that could end mankind after a total loss of bees. According to the urban legend, and some news sources, Einstein said "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left." (e.g. http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=38449). But it is most likely falsely attributed to the wild-haired physicist... http://www.markturner.net/?q=node/2195.

Isn't it time for another cell phone safety study to prove to us that cell phone use causes/doesn't cause cancer?

[slayda]

I wouldn't worry until they show evidence that it affects the Africanized bees is a similar manner. Maybe we could get the German Prof. to take his cell near one of their hives & try a call.

[NatCh]

Now, slayda, that's not nice.