Misdemeanor
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Mobile phones & BeesWith no knowledge aforethought of bees and beekeeping - but this was in the telegraph today and I felt it warranted posting:
| Quote: | The electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phone towers could wipe out honey bees within 10 years, according to a study.
An experiment in India’s southern state of Kerala found that a sudden fall in the bee population was caused after mobile phone companies expanding their networks installed more towers across the region.
Waves from the towers crippled the “navigational skills” of the worker bees that collect nectar from flowers to sustain the colonies, said Dr Sainuddin Pattazhy, the study’s author. He found that when a mobile phone was kept near a hive worker bees could not return to it. Hives were left with only the queen and the eggs and the colony collapsed within 10 days.
Over 100,000 people in Kerala work in apiculture and the dwindling worker bee population threatens their livelihood. Dr Pattazhy said if the number of towers and mobile phones increased further, honey bees could be wiped out. |
The article didn't provide a link to the study if posted online, my apologies if this reads like an attempt to lecture one's elders on the art of sucking eggs. It's just an fyi.
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goosey
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Beeking-wise, I'm not one of the elders.
Thank you very much for this. It is worth setting up some apiaries to study this phenomenon here, in my opinion.
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Tavascarow
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If the bees fly close enough I have no doubt they would be affected.
Don't ever recall seeing any birds roosting on them either.
But I have had a mobile mast within 2 miles of my hives for 9 years & my bees are doing fine.
I know some that claim using a mobile or even a video camera near a hive makes the bees angry but I always leave my mobile off when I'm working my bees & have only ever taken stills so no evidence.
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beean
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there was a theory that mobile phone masts and the like were causing problems like CCD, but evidence from bees kept near such things compared to bees away from them showed no link.
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BahamaMama
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I had a discussion with a french beekeeper this summer and she also thought there was a connection. That was the first time I had heard it until today.
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beean
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It does kind of make sense that there should be a link really - bees navigation and all that....but no connection found by scientific experiment.
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