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Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss
krou passes along word from Telegraph.co.uk that researchers from Chandigarh's Punjab University claim that they have proven mobile phones could explain Colony Collapse Disorder. "They set up a controlled experiment in Punjab earlier this year comparing the behavior and productivity of bees in two hives — one fitted with two mobile telephones which were powered on for two 15-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 phone, 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. They also found a dramatic decline in the number of worker bees returning to the hive after collecting pollen." We've talked about the honeybee problem before. Today's article quotes a British bee specialist who dismisses talk of cellphone radiation having anything to do with the problem.
Before I BEE-lieve it
Tell the damn queen to stop texting and get back to work.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
There were millions of bees. The results are highly significant.
Clearly we are seeing a great contribution to science.
Deleted
Exactly, maybe one queen had poor leadership.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
then the bees could have used the gps and google maps
maybe people from the future are abducting the bees?
I can see it now, they kept trying to text the other hive and when they didn't get a response, the first hive realized that they weren't BFF and got depressed and stopped collecting pollen, making honey and doing the nasty with the queen...
Sheldon
Don't know about you mate, but if Discovery thought me one thing it is that it is preferable to get hit by a small wave instead of a big one. Don't you guys watch Deadliest Catch?
... on the loudest setting AND vibrate mode! :)
Just kidding,
Paul B.
That'd generate the kind of data we're actually looking for wouldn't it?
Definitely not! I like my phone and mobile devices, so any empirical evidence which inconveniences me would have to be rationalised away in any case. I'm pretty confident the study would turn up nothing at all. It's almost axiomatic that what's good for me is good for the world. The research money would better be spent increasing coverage by erecting more transmission towers and the like.
And yeah, Honey is bad for your health.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
We have ways of making them explain.
As a bee that was part of the "mobile" hive (and I resent the assumption that we were not "mobile" before this unfortunate test), I can attest that the researchers got what they were looking for. Of course we're not going to linger around the hive, nor will the queen lay eggs, as long as they keep calling us with some mobile phone company tag line. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Yeah yeah, how about I sting your lab coated ass?
It's one thing to have a periodic interruption from our "keeper" even though he has a horrible smoking problem. But jeez, phone calls at 3am from a drunk whiner complaining about his love life and apologizing ... is that part of your thesis? Of course the phone's presence will impact us, dumbass.
Oh, and the text messsages: seriously not funny. Just stop.
Should I get off your lawn now, grandpa?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Should I get off your lawn now, grandpa?
Only after you pollinate some of his flowers.
John