Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Bees in danger. Cell phones to be blamed.


pranking Moe's bar again.
Alarming study led by researcher Daniel Favre found that bees reacted pretty radically in the presence of cell phones placed in vicinity of their hives. The bees seem to have sensed the signals transmitted when the phone rang, and they also produced a heavy buzzing noise during the calls. The frequency of calls seems to have confused bees into a state of erratic flight patterns, and, as study demonstrated, their buzzing sounds increased ten-fold when the phones were in call or ringing mode, but remained normal when they were not in use.
“It is apparent that cell phone signals cause bees to become lost and disoriented, and sometimes to assemble into a swarm. A minute or so after the phones are shut off, everything seems to go back to normal”, said Dr. Daniel Favre. 
Popularization and acceptance of mobile phones as a personal device for the last fifteen years is largely coinciding with the huge decline of bee populations in the northern hemisphere.
Why should we be alarmed?
Bees are a major pollinator. In the U.S. alone they are responsible for 30% of the food production. Bee populations dropped 17% in the UK last year, according to the British Bee Association, and nearly 30 percent in the United States according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Andrew Goldsworthy, a biologist from the UK's Imperial College, London, has studied the biological effects of electromagnetic fields. He thinks too that it’s possible bees could be affected by cell phone radiation.


The reason, Goldsworthy says, could be associated with a pigment in bees called cryptochrome.

Animals, including insects, use cryptochrome for navigation.
They use it to sense the direction of the Earth's magnetic field and their ability to do this is compromised by radiation from cell phones and their base stations. Due to this factor bees have hard time finding their way home.
Goldsworthy has written to the UK communications regulator, suggesting that a change of phone frequencies could stop this confusion that bees experience.

39 comments:

  1. So what you are saying is that honey prices are going to skyrocket, and somehow because of this, so will gas prices? :P

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  2. No, lol, we might starve, that's all :)

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  3. to bad this is like the 8th reason I have seen a study blaming for the sudden decrease in Bees, everything from global warming to the eruption of Mount Pinatubo....

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  4. Wow, it's interesting to read how animals and insects can feel stuff we have no clue about. People talk about cancer when using cell phones, but this is on an entirely different scale. Interesting read!

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  5. BEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS, how do they work?

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  6. I keep hearing this stuff about how without bees we couldn't grow any food.. cellular signals killing off bees certainly doesn't help

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  7. FUUUUUUUUUUUU i had heard of bee population dropping but didnt now why so Cellphones are to blame Damn.

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  8. i'm terrified of bees so i'll do whatever they want as long as they don't sting me

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  9. Dude I hate bees with a passion (I'm allergic) but I understand they are a vital part on the world.

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  10. There is not nearly enough of Nic Cage screaming The BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES in here.

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  11. Colony collapse disorder is a major threat, but there are so many theories for its causes...

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  12. If bees disappeared, we'd all be screwed.

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  13. That's bad for our ecossystems :\

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  14. i think it has to do with unseen sound waves or something..

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  15. wow what an awesome post! Full of knowledge :P
    when a bee chases me i know what to do to confuse em :)

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  16. This is crazy man. So thats why they have been dying off rapidly, our cell phones. I don't see us stopping anytime soon either. Bees might be killed off =/

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  17. Im sure there is an app for getting rid of bees. lol.

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  18. I'm sure someone will create an iBee app.

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  19. Bees are actually a super important part of the food chain ecosystem etc. And I find this weird as hell!

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  20. This could certainly explain the drops in population, but I do wonder if more is going on. I often wonder about the effect of being surrounded by all these waves and energy we've set up with electricity/communications grids on all organisms. I guess we'll find out.

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  21. All the more reason to get bee farms!

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  22. It's easy to raise your own small hive, check around, the internet has tons of resources. Bees are cool :)

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  23. thats why the bees always find me, though if i hide inside my home :)

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  24. I don't like bees, but I looove me some sweet honey. Weird how there are unexpected side-effects to everything.

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  25. Very interesting. I wonder how much this has contributed to the decline in the bee population.

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  26. I knew cell phones were evil. save the bees!

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  27. Wow, that's really interesting to read of their behaviour around mobile phones. Alarming indeed! Love the pic of the bee guy too! Cool post.

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  28. very interesting study, o.o so the bees would become less and less with there being more and more cell phones!

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  29. damn, this is amazing. cell phones are modern, im not surprised were still seeing these stats pop up

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  30. I admire these creatures. Good that some people watch these populations. And hopefully there'll be some kind of solution (except for not using the cellphones anymore).

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  31. Wow, interesting. Well, bees are doomed. People aren't going to part with their precious cellular devices anytime soon.

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