June 30, 2010 Study links bee decline to cell phones
Bee populations dropped 17 percent in the UK last year, according to the British Bee Association, and nearly 30 percent in the United States says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Parasitic mites called varroa, agricultural pesticides and the effects of climate change have all been implicated in what has been dubbed “colony collapse disorder” (CCD).
But researchers in India believe cell phones could also be to blame for some of the losses.
June 1, 2010 Are cell phones killing off bees?
They set up a controlled experiment in Punjab earlier this year comparing the behaviour and productivity of bees in two hives – one fitted with two mobile telephones which were powered on for two fifteen minute sessions per day for three months. The other had dummy models installed.
After three months the researchers recorded a dramatic decline in the size of the hive fitted with the mobile phon, a significant reduction in the number of eggs laid by the queen bee. The bees also stopped producing honey.
The queen bee in the “mobile” hive produced fewer than half of those created by her counterpart in the normal hive.
January 15, 2008 The Birds And The Bees
Electropollution may be the most dangerous toxin of this century.
Apr 30, 2007 bees in danger
According to a german blog, “[r]esearchers at Landau University have strong evidence that radiation from cellular networks are disrupting bees’ migration patterns and therefore could be behind the dramatic decrease in the number of bees in the U. S. and Europe.” Germans aren't the only ones who paid attention to dropping rates of bees. Last week the New York Times reported that “More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost.
2007 Spring Disappearing Bees: Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)
One common theory — that cellular phones may be causing CCD — has been widely discounted. This theory made the news in April 2007, after “The Independent” featured an article on a link between cell phones and bee disappearance. However, the study that “The Independent” cited was not related to cell phones. The researchers were instead studying the electromagnetic energy coming from the base units of cordless phones by implanting the bases directly in the beehives. A cordless phone uses a different wavelength of electromagnetic energy than cellular phones do.
Phi Beta Iota: The cellular theory remains to be replicated, but is worthy of note. The next big leap in telecommunications, in our view, is going to be a mix of Open Spectrum, and secure non-invasive precautionary electromagnetics. Soviet emissions standards have always been ten times tougher than US standards, and today in Afghanistan, where drones are being hacked and jammed while everything else is its usual spagetti mess making no sense in the aggregate, the US is experiencing the “strategic decrepitude” of an incoherent development history. A global solution is needed for full spectrum communications, computing, and information exploitation.
