Throw Away Your Mobiles!

[Rosemary]

The Irish Times

What's gone wrong with the flight of the bumblebee?
By MICHAEL VINEY

Bumblebees are in decline, in Ireland as almost everywhere else, mostly from loss of habitat. Honeybees are just as vital to pollination of human food crops – in some cases much more so – and their comings and goings and navigation systems are responsive to the planet’s natural magnetic fields.

The notion that cell-phone radiation might interfere with honeybee behaviour dates from 2003 and a small study from the University of Koblenz-Landau, in Germany. In exploring possible effects of the radiation on neurological mechanisms controlling learning and memory, handsets were placed near hives. Their radiation caused the bees to avoid them, perhaps through resonant disruption of the “waggle dance” on the honeycomb by which returning foragers communicate the whereabouts of pollen.

What's gone wrong with the flight of the bumblebee? - The Irish Times - Sat, Apr 30, 2011

So is it back to pen, ink and papyrus for us to save the bees?

 

[OmahaRenegade]

While this is disturbing, I'm sure developing mobile technology that does not effect bumblebees, or other necessary insects, is possible.

On the other hand, I just got my iPhone 4 and I'm not giving it up the bees will just have to wait until something better comes out.

 

[slack]

Perhaps because of the eternal pessimist in me, I don't think this information will do anything to change our habits until we find ourselves in the middle of an ecological crisis.


(slack does not own a mobile telephonic device)

 

[Dave]

Perhaps because of the eternal pessimist in me, I don't think this information will do anything to change our habits until we find ourselves in the middle of an ecological crisis.

History would tell us that is true, but my problem would be:

The notion that cell-phone radiation might interfere with honeybee behaviour dates from 2003 and a small study from the University of Koblenz-Landau, in Germany.

A "small study", seemingly unreplicated and unrepeated, would need a much bigger study to be taken seriously. There has been talk for years about bees disappearing (it even made it into the script of Doctor Who) but I'd think that pesticides, loss of habitat, or something much more mundane was to blame.

Also I've seen plenty of bees this year, but what I have noticed (and this is not a scientific study by any means) was that there seemed to be more bumblebees and less honeybees.

Bumblebee identification page - learn how to identify the UK's bumblebees

I didn't look closely enough to see if they were cuckoo bumblebees or not.

But surely, any affect by mobile phone radiation would affect all species equally? The fact that one species can outperform another would lead me to suspect something else as the cause.

There has also been a lot of exaggeration, unsubstantiated facts and plain lies put around about mobile phone radiation and its affects of various things over the years (none of which was subsequently proved) and the radiation from a phone itself is much stronger than that from a mast. Unless there is some reason why phones are being used next to hives then I don't see that we should be so worried by that study.

 

[J-WO]

Twitter or honey. Time to choose...

 

[Ursa major]

I haven't seen many bumblebees so far this year, but 2009 and 2010 were bumper years for them around here (in urban Dorset).

 

[The Ace]

Never carry one.

 

[Vertigo]

I seem to have loads of bumble bees appearing this year already. In fact I nearly always get loads in the garden along with wasps and honey bees. The latter built a nest on my gas tank a few years back and unfortunately I had to get rid of it before the gas man got attacked filling the tank. It was attached to the pipe that runs into the ground and if anyone so much as walked near it they went bonkers. Very sad as I couldn't find a bee keeper interested in collecting them.

 

[Chaoticheart]

Used to see them all the time here (melb, aus), but I haven't seen a single bee for for a few years now.

 

[Starbeast]

Another reason to throw Away Your Mobiles

 

[woodsman]

On the other hand, I just got my iPhone 4 and I'm not giving it up the bees will just have to wait until something better comes out.

Just a little short sighted considering how important pollinators in general are, no?

Yeah there's no real definitive proof, a few more studies would be interesting.

The Irish seem to be quite excited about their bees -I was contracted on surveys in Killarney (SP?) last year. Nothing quite so much fun as counting bees landing on flowers.

 

[Vertigo]

Now that, Woodsman, is a job I could seriously consider Mind you not so much fun when the weather's bad

 

[woodsman]

It's great when you have some decent grub and something to wash it down.

Actually if it P*****s it down you don't go out as the bees don't either ( generally went for a wander down the estuary) so its only in light rain. We were pretty lucky to have two/three weeks of really good weather - I came back with a tan - from Ireland!

 

[Ursa major]

The Irish seem to be quite excited about their bees -I was contracted on surveys in Killarney (SP?) last year. Nothing quite so much fun as counting bees landing on flowers.

That work wasn't used as the basis of the Magners cider/bee-bearded man advert (Method In The Bee Beard Advert, Ad - Magners Cider - Video Clip), was it?

 

[Metryq]

So, how many of those bees were carrying cell phones?

I met a guy in college studying to become a myrmecologist. Every time I'd see him, I'd ask him how his "ant" was doing. One of his studies involved the work patterns of ants, and he had a Connection machine "watching" the video and following the ants, plotting trails, running stats, etc. I figured bee-watching would be automated by now.

Or would watching the bees alter their behavior in a Schrödinger's cat-like way?