Cell phones killing bees??

I came upon an article this morning about a researcher named Daniel Favre in Lausanne Switzerland, claiming that 83 experiments conducted on bees and cell phone signals cause death:

"The signals cause the bees to become lost and disoriented, resulting in death. The impact has already been felt the world over, as the population of bees in the U.S. and the U.K. has decreased by almost half in the last thirty years – which coincides with the popularization and acceptance of cell phones as a personal device."

AND

"The bees sensed the signals transmitted when the phones rang, and emitted heavy buzzing noise during the calls. The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically, and then suddenly die! The study found that the bees’ buzzing noise increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call – aka when signals are being transmitted, but remained normal when not in use."


article
inhabitat.com...


Has anyone heard of this research before. I had read about bees and satellites before but not cells phones.

What does this mean? How many people have a cell phone, I do...How many people have opted to
disconnected their land lines for this service? I have been thinking about it....

Too bad there is no other source or data information in the article. I would love to get my hands on that info. If this is true the implications are astounding!

As we all well know, if the bees go, humans will probably go too.....

reply to post by Starwise


I live in Phoenix Arizona, a few months ago the local news here talked about it.
They said that sciencetist think cell phones were the cause but needed more time to work on the problem.

reply to post by Starwise


This is a very likely explanation IMO. Check out this thread: I think I know whats killing the bees

But there are also other explanations, for instance this thread is interesting: Caught Red Handed! USDA Bee Extinction Study Kept Secret!

What's killing bees is actually a few things, the progression into magnetic reversal, the bees rely on magnetic alignment to return to the hive, the movement of the poles are causing many to become disoriented and lost.

Another is that, as predicted almost a hundred years ago, the domesticated bees are being annihilated by their sheltered state, they can all be crushed by wild bees introducing deadly strains.

GM foods.

Cell Phones and signals are probably a big factor as well, it messes with their magnetic direction.

If you kill the bees....you kill the plant life....

That is all..

But seriously.......this is a topic that I have become aware of the effect bees have on our daily lives. Interesting thread, will be keeping an eye out and researching this subject.

Greg

Well, if this is properly validated the solution is not terribly difficult, but could be a bit expensive. The FCC would have to determine which frequencies are the most damaging and remove them from the allowed cellular bandwidth. Other countries would have to do the same of course.
Because many modern cell phones in the US have capabilities to operate on 3 or more frequency ranges eliminating one would not be the end of all communication... but it would certainly cause some problems. The phones themselves would probably be able to be replaced with high conformation in 2 years or less (as most cell users replace phones in that time frame.) Cell towers would be a larger problem, but the government could make it much less painful by relaxing regulations temporarily... currently tower placement is very highly controlled and adding towers can be very expensive, but much of the cost is due to the limited permitted locations. Upgrading towers happens all the time, but it is a slow process much of the time.
Overall, with the way technology is increasing, eliminating certain frequency bands would be relatively easy to accomplish in the USA under a 5 or certainly 10 year horizon...

Edit:
It looks like the linked article from the OP took a few liberties... it says the info was taken from an article Here. However, the original clearly says that there is no evidence that cell phone signals directly kill the bees.

Around 20 to 40 minutes after the phones were activated, the bees began to emit "piping" calls - a series of high pitched squeaks that announce the start of swarming.

Within two minutes of the phone call ending, the worker bees calmed down.

In the study, the bees did not swarm - even after 20 hours' exposure to mobile phone signals. However, the onset of unexpected swarming triggered by mobile phone signals could have 'dramatic consequences in terms of colony losses', Dr Favre reports in the bee keeping journal Apidologie.

The study did not show that mobile phones were deadly for bees, he said.

The article listed by the OP tells a different story...

The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically, and then suddenly die! The study found that the bees’ buzzing noise increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call – aka when signals are being transmitted, but remained normal when not in use.

The signals cause the bees to become lost and disoriented, resulting in death.

Signs of the Times carried this story, too.

There are several threads spanning a number of years on this topic. It seems we have a valid why here.

There have been other warnings about cell phones. The official word is that these are overblown...

If this is really happening we need a big re-think of this communication technology. We need our bees. I don't see how we could made the biosphere work right without bees. Maybe what Tesla was working on would be safer. This has been outside my personal interest, but it can't be ignored. We need to push for technologies that don't destroy our ecosystem.

reply to post by Starwise


I hope to hell that cell phones get banned. I hate them with a passion. I hate to see todays youth sucked in and thinking that life evovles around their stupid phones, I could go on and on about my reasons for hating them and killing bees is added to the list now. BAN CELL PHONES!

Wow you are only just hearing about this?
I live in Australia and this crap about cell phones killing off the bees has been talked about for years...