Mobile phones responsible for disappearance of honey bee

Bee's often congregate near cell towers, maybe they're just confused like some type of vortex or something.

All of the pro-bee's in this thread will go about tomorrow using their cell phones no doubt.

While it is easy to point fingers, I still doubt how valid this claim is.

Could have been chance.
Bad study.

Too many factors.

I will use my phone tomorrow and with pride.

This is alarming to say the least.
I live where there are no bees.
I was bitten by a bee once.
Got my tennis racket out and hit him.
Do you know what the last thing that entered his mind when he hit the tennis racket?
His rear ennd.

I saw a documentary recently about the disappearance of the honey bee in the UK, and in it, it showed urban bee keepers, hives were on roof tops, city gardens, and one was next to an electricity power station. After a study it was shown that the city bees were not disappearing, whereas the rural ones were.

The mobile phone suggestion was dismissed, as there are far more mobile phone signals in the city than the country.

The only possible conclusion the program could come up with was pesticides are more prevalent in the country, therefore it's probably pesticides.

This is not my personal view, i just don't know what's going on with the bees, i'm just stating what the tv program said.

peace

reply to post by Myrddin Wyllt


Interesting point. I remember seeing that (or a similar documentary) maybe a couple of years ago.

The situation is clearly complex. This latest research has put the cat among the pigeons; at the same time the article is quite balanced:

...Tim Lovett, of the British Beekeepers Association, said that hives have been successful in London where there was high mobile phone use. "Previous work in this area has indicated this [mobile phone use] is not a real factor," he said. "If new data comes along we will look at it."

He said: "At the moment we think is more likely to be a combination of factors including disease, pesticides and habitat loss."

The UK Government has set aside £10 million for research into the decline of pollinators like bees, but the BBKA claim much more money is needed for research into the problem, including studies on pesticides, disease and new technology like mobile phones.

Clearly the jury is still out, and as some posters have quite reasonably implied, it is essential that this trial be replicated.


Incidentally some of the anecdotal evidence posted so far has been intriguing.

Well it may be a factor but this study was hardly conclusive. They stuck a phone in the hive. Hardly a realistic scenario. No hives are that close the cell phone radiation. Bees congregating at Cell phone towers is more telling then that. Still tha is just and RF signal there are millions of dishes for Sat TV and no bees reported congregating at them. This suggest a certain RF frequency may attract bees and needs to be studied.

To many variables to say cell phones are the definitive problem. Most likely it is a combination of things not just one thing.

reply to post by hawkiye


Agreed. The general consensus seems to be that a combination of factors is at work. I suppose the logic is that while any one factor might simply weaken the bees, the combination — whatever it may be — creates an overload (perhaps on the immune system, or on a combination of that and their navigation system).

But if cell phone broadcasts do turn out to be a significant factor in that mix can you see the operators putting their hands in the air & switching off the masts?..

Surely it wouldn't just affect Bees.

Why are we not seeing wasp colony collapse or hornet colony collapse.

In the US has any one noticed a decline in Killer Bees?

reply to post by IanC99000310


Good questions.

After a quick search I've not been able to find any answers. Maybe someone can find a possible explanation of why wasps are not being affected?


Also had a quick read of the wiki article, Colony collapse disorder. It's quite surprising how little research has been conducted into the cell phone angle.

Here's another article I found on the subject a while back:

Millions of Bees Die - Are Electromagnetic Signals To Blame?

Don't forget the GWEN stations they have planted underground to manipulate earth's magnetic fields.

Oh, and HAARP for the atmosphere.

"Somebody" controls the frequency of our entire living space...

Uh ohs... synthetic rapture!

[edit on 2010-5-31 by sandwiches]

Originally posted by boondock-saint
now if I were smart
I'd be trying to figure out
a way mankind can communicate
like we do now ....
without the use of a cell phone.

That market should be expanding soon

I wish it were so but you know whatis going to happen next. The mobile phone companies will bring out their scientists to disprove the current findings and /or just muddy the waters for decade. The government may get involved and the rightwingers will howl about state interventions, etc

It will all be a ghastly mess and the bees will continue to die out (assuming the research findings were correct).

That is how we do things on the planet.

[edit on 31-5-2010 by Tiger5]

reply to post by pause4thought


So,cell phones are probably destroying the bee population,
that does make sense.I wonder what the cell phones are
doing to our brains?I am asking this because I have been
having trouble with my memory for the past 6 years.I don't
have trouble with my long term,it's my short term.I have been
using a cell phone for 8 years.

reply to post by mamabeth


You're opening a real can of worms now. The issue is very hotly debated & there's plenty of reading on the effects of cell phone radiation. I think you'd want to discount other possible influences such as stress, etc.

Maybe someone has a particularly good article on the effects of this type of radiation on the body?


Back on topic: though some very good articles have been posted, such as by sandwiches, above, you have to wonder why more research hasn't been funded/published in journals.



[edit on 31/5/10 by pause4thought]

I live in a rural area where mobile phone/cellphone reception is very poor across all the networks. Yet the few bees I've seen this year have all been very unwell, dopey looking & on their last legs. So if their poor health is related to cellphone coverage, they must be extremely sensitive to it.

Think this whole area needs urgent examination, same with the whales beaching themselves for no apparent reason (possible sonar/submarine activity).

reply to post by Ulala


I think the consensus is that if this is a factor it is one of many. Perhaps that very fact means it is harder to get funding for research — but what if this radiation is the straw that breaks the camel's back, or even the killer blow?..

Mobile phones are not the reason. CCD has been observed as early as 1869. In 1960s is was called disappearing disease in Australia and disappearing syndrome in North America. CCD like symptoms have been observed over 20 separate times in recent history, all before the time of mobile phones.

[edit on 31-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

As I pointed out before, this thread is based on an experiment with a very high chance of a false positive. It needs to be redone with a larger sample size. Until that time there is little reason to assume that cell phones are involved.

reply to post by rhinoceros


That doesn't sound like a convincing argument in the light of the extreme scenario that has been at play only in recent years:

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) or sometimes honey bee depopulation syndrome (HBDS) is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honey bee colonies in North America in late 2006...

en.wikipedia.org...



reply to post by stereologist


While the main thrust of your argument is conceded the data revealed by this experiment ought to make the urgency of further research abundantly clear.

While the main thrust of your argument is conceded the data revealed by this experiment ought to make the urgency of further research abundantly clear.

In my first post on the experiment I stated that the funding for a reasonable experiment should be made available. I do not see this experiment as evidence for anything at all. The probability that this is a spurious result is very high. Would you accept a diagnosis from a doctor if they flipped a coin and stated that you needed open heart surgery. Essentially that is what this experiment suggests. Several people have recommended abandoning a line of technology based on an experiment which is hardly better than a coin flip.

A real experiment should have used a minimum of 6 hives for both the control and the experimental group.

I should also point out that the previous near extinction of the European honeybee in North America was due to mites. The current disorder has not had an identified cause, which is why the use of the term disorder. Many experiments have been done attempting to see if the disorder is due to chemicals, a disease, or whatever. I would not get too caught up on something, which hardly can be called an experiment. It is more a demonstration of what could be done in an actual experiment.