Are Cell Phones Wiping Out Our Bees?!

Perhaps it is a virus then?
Virus in Bees

cellphones (and towers) have been around longer than a few years, so we should have seen a more gradual decline if they were the main culprit. if they truely get disoriented by cellphone activity, it's realy bad news, though, for everyone.

if it was a virus, other insects should not be susceptible to it, which means hives would be plundered. the fact that it does not happen suggests two things: a) there's something in the honey and b) predators and other bees sense it. imho, the most plausible variant is some rogue symbiotic organism (GMO or not i don't know) spreading through bee populations by trade and cross-breeding.

i wonder why they are not pursuing this most obvious route, more than likely, lab tests were conclusive and what we are seeing is 'damage control', ie. Disinfo.

Originally posted by Long Lance
i wonder why they are not pursuing this most obvious route, more than likely, lab tests were conclusive and what we are seeing is 'damage control', ie. Disinfo.

Labs tests were conclusive? What was the conclusion then, perhaps it was cellphones, similar to the whole "do cellphones cause cancer" question?

Perhaps the cell waves are causing this problem and now being covered up?

The whole planet has been buzzing (sorry, no pun intended ) with radio signals for the last century, from low power to megawatt output but this bee die-off appears to be a recent thing.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with GM crops or pesticides though

Think about it, if the GM crops do not produce pollen or create their own organic pesticides, then this is obviously going to affect insects that would normally collect that pollen. Another report I saw on the subject a week or two ago quoted a report stating that bees were being found that has suffered what looked like a complete immune system breakdown, leading to multiple diseases withing a single subject.

Whatever is happening it could sure have a big impact. Amazing that this has not been given more widespread coverage in the press.

I was lucky enough to come across an individual with a PHD in animal behavior, specifically bees. She mentioned to me that the most likely explaination for the bee shortage was due to the interbreeding of european and african bees. African bees are very migratory insects, unlike the european. Hope this helps some.

The cellphone theory is a faulty one. The density of people in the US (And therefore cellphones) are MUCH MUCH lower than many other western countries. Therefore we should have seen a decline in other contries, but the states.

But we don't.

Therefore I expect the reason to be the US' insane use of pesticides..

Originally posted by Indy
I have a theory. Humans have a CO2 tolerance level. If we take in too much CO2 our blood basically gets poisoned and we die. Bees will certainly have a tolerance level as well. Who is to say that the current global CO2 levels don't exceed that tolerance level? Perhaps they become disoriented and fly off and eventually die.

Humans die of elevated CO2 levels, because hemoglobin (the oxygen/CO2 transporter in blood) has a higher affinity for CO2, than oxygen.

Bee's like all other insects doesnt have blood, but small tubes in the skin, that works as airducts. Therefore they won't happen to die of the CO2 levels we have in the atmosphere at this point.

This is something I've been following for a while now since I first heard of it, and basically there are a few different theories I've seen proposed for the disappearance or death of bees - note, in most reported cases the bees are simply gone, though in some hives, there have been bodies, in most cases they're simply empty. As far as numbers of bees lost, even one beekeeper's reported losses were "millions of bees". (I can dig up links for the different cases if anyone would like)

Theories I've seen proposed.

-Viruses or some other disease
-Overdose of pesticides used to treat bees for a commonly found mite
-Overdose of pesticides on the plants bees pollinate
-Unknown effects from genetically modified crops - especially ones which involve crops modified to repel certain pests, which are not supposed to affect bees.
-Weakening of earth's magnetic field (in preparation for a flip from north/south, in some cases)
-Other "navigation" disorders, caused by cellphones or other devices
-Temperature problems.
-A result of bees being fed on 'sugar water' rather than the honey which they create themselves
-Genetic or other problems related to intermingling with other species of bees.

As yet, I've yet to see anything conclusive - in most cases it's "We think it MAY be this", depending on which source you read. Obviously with the large numbers of bees simply disappearing, it's hard for scientists to test bodies they don't have, all they can do is look at the hives, in most cases. (One post I read somewhere even suggested that there was some sort of amazing quantum powers the bees have, which were being messed with)

The important things to pay attention to, in my opinion, are the following.

This is a sudden collapse of bee population numbers. It's not a gradual thing where bees numbers are declining, it is 20-90% of hives suddenly disappearing.

Bees as a species have been around for approximately 100 million years, though the honey bee is probably around 35 million years old

The domesticated bee is incredibly important to pollination of crops - there is essentially a 'rent-a-bee' sort of business in the US. In 2000, the total U.S. crop value that was wholly dependent on the honey bee pollination was estimated to exceed $US 15 billion (Morse, R.A.; Calderone, N.W., The Value of Honey Bees as Pollinators of US Crops in 2000. Cornell University (2000))

There are distinct phenomena related to this disorder which are bizarre to say the least - en.wikipedia.org...

And finally, borrowing from the same wiki page I just linked,

While some farmers of a few kinds of native crops do bring in honey bees to help pollinate, none specifically need them, and when honey bees are absent from a region, the native pollinators quickly reclaim the niche, typically being better adapted to serve those plants (assuming that the plants normally occur in that specific area). On the 30% of crop types where honey bees are used -- even though many other creatures are actually more efficient at pollinating, on a per-individual basis -- most native pollinators cannot be mass-utilized as easily or as effectively as honey bees, if they will visit the plants at all. Beehives can be moved from crop to crop as needed, and the bees will visit many plants in large numbers, compensating via sheer numbers for what they lack in efficiency. The commercial viability of these crops is therefore strongly tied to the beekeeping industry.

This is something that *will* affect your life via food prices if you live in the US at minimum, though by no means is this phenomenon limited to the states. Already beekeepers will struggle to recover from the numbers of bees lost this year. If this continues next year too?

[edit on 16-4-2007 by Inannamute]

Intreresting theory on the cellphones causing the bee mystery, while looking at anon posts I found this post about TETRA comm systems and thought it should be in this thread for reference.

Posted by anon_109571 on 16-04-07 @ 04:55 AM

Bees and their decline.

TETRA. Microwave communications system for the Police and other services. here is a link from serving Police officers about how it damages their health - www.tetrawatch.net...

So, why not the bees who are hypersensitive to this form of pulsed energy (tetra pulses at a very similar frequecy to the human beta state mind and other systems inside us)

Quote from that web page.

Specifically, TETRA multiframes coincide with the electrical frequency of the heart, and the 17.64Hz frames (or handset pulses) with beta brain frequencies (13Hz to 40Hz). And the 70.56Hz pulse is a muscular electrical frequency.

So, it started in the uSA, as did this system, spread to the Uk, as did this system, and now to europe..as did this system.

For interest, Austrailia banned it as being untested and possibly harmful to the long term health of its people.

Think about it.

Heres a theory... Say you are a company that produces genetically modified (GM) seeds and propagation material. Foods such as fruit, nuts etc, a huge industry potentially and wanted to advance the acceptance of such foods. We know today these foods (GM) are not widely accepted, and in some cases are adamantly denied in local markets. How would you go about it if all the previous social methods (advertising, mass media etc) have not worked?

One answer would be to drive up food prices of organic foods, sky high levels. How would you go about doing that? A naturally occurring (virus) epidemic that wiped out the bee population to 10 percent levels. Scientists would estimate that it would take 2-3 years for the bee population to return to previous levels. In the meantime, GM foods would be the only substitute if you wanted to purchase your foods at a reasonable price.

To boot, the companies can also charge a PREMIUM for their unwanted GM foods since theyre the only game in town!
Sounds like a plan to me! Feasible?


[edit on 16-4-2007 by greatlakes]

Originally posted by Britguy


I'm sure it has nothing to do with GM crops or pesticides though

Think about it, if the GM crops do not produce pollen or create their own organic pesticides, then this is obviously going to affect insects that would normally collect that pollen.

how do you know? many GM crops are producing toxins of their own

www.abovetopsecret.com...

it's not a stretch of the imagination to put 2 and 2 together and investigate the link of toxin producing microorganisms, which received certain traits by horizontal gene transfer (see quote below), and today's die-off. if it can happen once it can just as easily happen many times and this time we might have lost the gamble.

Source

Active Bt toxin leaks from plant roots into the soil where it is not biodegradable and accumulates over time. This will have major impacts on soil health, with knock-on effects on all other trophic levels of the ecosystem. The recent report that a GM gene has transferred from GM pollen to microbes in the gut of bee larvae underlines the fact that Bt toxin genes, like all other GM genes, will spread out of control

empahsis mine, article is from 2000

this is of course pure speculation on my part, but it's imho, justified because most of the articles are not adressing why the hives are apparently shunned by all other insects, which just screams contamination.

Originally posted by greatlakes

Originally posted by Long Lance
i wonder why they are not pursuing this most obvious route, more than likely, lab tests were conclusive and what we are seeing is 'damage control', ie. Disinfo.

Labs tests were conclusive? What was the conclusion then, perhaps it was cellphones, similar to the whole "do cellphones cause cancer" question?

Perhaps the cell waves are causing this problem and now being covered up?

[edit on 16.4.2007 by Long Lance]

It also doesn't help that whenever someone finds a wild beehive in their backyard and mistake it for a Wasp or Hornets nest, they wipe it out ASAP. No one knows just how many Wild (Non Native) Bees have been wiped out this was or what effect it may have had on their domesticated cousins, but IMHO, it's connected to this. I personally believe it's a Perfect Storm. Multiple Factors are converging to cause this rapid decline. Pesticide use definately seems like a culprit, but what about Mold? Has anyone investigated that angle yet?

I've often wondered just what damage is being caused by all the EM.

When you start getting up to the 3GHz+ mark, you are getting into the area of microwaves. Think microwave oven - same principle.

Tetra has been shown to cause cancers in humans, yet we continue to use it.

I'd like to know how I'd feel if all the sources of EM were switched off for a week.

Originally posted by mirageofdeceit
I'd like to know how I'd feel if all the sources of EM were switched off for a week.

You'd feel hungry and probably very very thirsty as in order to due that, it would necessitate the complete shutdown of the powergrid as that is a source of EM.

My town's flooded and therefore this will be very cavemanish.

Bees are sensitive to the quantum world.
Their dance is six dimensional.

discovermagazine.com...
www.npr.org...

I believe this next article hypothesizes that sunspots may affect bees.
www.synchronizm.com... o-flew-too-high/
I don't have the time to read through that, and I somehow doubt that sunspots would cause their honey to repulse scavengers.

Anywho, I'm suggesting that all of our quantum pollution has damaged more than just the bee's ability to navigate. I'm not just referring to cell phones, but everything, even perhaps nuclear radiation and particle accelerators. I know that the rural areas are allegedly too far away to be affected by all of our quantum pollution, but we aren't considering the multidimensional implications of our technology. Distances may be very different then we percieve them in 3D. And, if bees are sensitive to this radiation soup we create, perhaps it's affected them deeply enough to cause them to make crappy honey (cavemanish), or even poisonous honey. I could speculate all day, but I haven't the time. Us homo sapiens cannot fathom the true implications of our technological marvels.

Perhaps I'm rambling, and perhaps I'm just worried that every major highway in Westchester is cut off and I don't know how I'm getting to work, but that's my two cents.

I'll think on this and perhaps write more later, or perhaps another lovely ATS member can elaborate on my nonsensical ramblings.

Yes cell towers have been around for a while, but the number of towers and carriers is multiplying daily.

The technology is changing, and there are more sources of this daily. Most laptops now have wifi built in, mobile phones are running wifi, bluetooth, and gsm. More vehicles are using traking devices, more homes have wifi access points. The list is massive.

How many shops in the uk now use bluetooth or wifi based chip and pin systems for tills?

If you look at the amount of data enabled devices in the past 5 years it has increased dramatically.

Whats to say the bees are not being pulled to urban areas by these systems, and unable to live there, or even live through the journey there?

You also have new weather radar systems, satellite imaging, and large numbers of new point to point microwave links. Airports in the UK upgrade radar systems on a regular basis, Then you have secondary radar, thats before you even look at the military systems.

The jury is out on Tetra, personally i think that it will have a negative effect on humans living near the masts.

How long till mobile phones get the same stickers that cigarettes have on them? Not soon enough.

As to it not being reported on the old google-box, do you think the tv companies would report something that they may indirectly be the cause of?

What we should be looking for is any new systems that have been introduced in or near these areas, like tetra.

I wonder if there are any new advanced radar systems involoved with the new missile defence system that we don't even know about.

Stick 10 meters of antenna cable in your back garden, hook it up to a wide-band receiver and tell me we are not spewing too much into the EM bands.

Everything in life is adapting to lifes new design, more waves of heat and electromagnetic disturbances do seem to cross signals, also neurotic behavior.Everything with a new beat has to find the rythumn to the melody perhaps they are finding new rythumns elsewhere.

Hopefully this will lead to the long overdue banning of cell phones. They aren't anything but a hazard.

[edit on 16-4-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Hello,

I have been following the progress of bee colonies too, from Nrth America, Lat Am and Europe.

If you goto www.ap.com, search under 'archives' for Colony Collapse Disorder, you will see a small list of stories that cover this phenomenon. I think that it was Einstein who said that if the bees became extinct, then it would take just 4 years to screw up the food chain or something like that - dont quote me!

I also feel that the chemtrails may be responsible for this culling of bee populations, as we just dont know what is contained in the falling trails, nor how it affects the internal systems of insects or birds etc.

Someone said that birds just fell out the skyas if it is not unusual, are we really becoming this desensitized to whats going on around us?

I also don't see how this story isn't being covered globally by the big news agencies

[edit on 16-4-2007 by deaman88]

[edit on 16-4-2007 by deaman88]