It didn’t sound like a very techie story when it first made the news last week in the United States: bees are disappearing throughout the country, seemingly abandoning their colonies. OK, this might not seem like such a big deal either, but keep in mind that most of the world’s crops depend on pollination by bees… and this becomes a more serious issue. Albert Einstein only once said that if bees disappeared, “man would have only four years of life left.”
Now scientists claim that the cause be radiation from handsets. The theory is that the radiation given off by the mobile phones and our other beloved gadgets could possibly be interfering with the bees’ navigation systems, preventing the works from finding their way back to their hives. One recent study even found that bees refused to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Maybe the bees are also annoyed by rude people who endlessly chat on their phones.
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? [The Independent]
You’re kidding right? Europe has much denser cell-phone usage than the U.S. and this problem went away when they suspended the use of system chemicals on the farms.
The current shift in the Earth’s poles probably have more to do with this than anything I’ve read so far.
Comment by Curt — April 30, 2007 @ 5:22 pm
Um, your really, really behind. Last week’s reports have indicated that the issue is a fungus that has migrated over from Europe causing the hive deaths, not cell phones. There is nothing to see here. Move along.
Comment by Kyle Johnson — May 1, 2007 @ 7:07 am
Actually, there’s still no conclusive evidence. The difficulty is that there are no dead bodies to examine and so it’s unclear that it’s a mite or fungus problem (those usually leave lots of dead bees around). They’ve just disappeared. It’s a problem for sure and I believe it’s ultimately linked to the increasing homogeneity of their food source, i.e. flowering fruits. Industrial farming has decreased the diversity of crops and they’ve started to feed bees corn syrup to supplement their diets, so it might be having an impact on the bees’ ability to stay healthy, kind of like people eating McDonald’s every day…
Comment by Phred — May 1, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
some people don’t have any thing productive to do, they research on bee(s)!!!!
permood,
mobilemarkaz.com
Comment by Permood — May 2, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
Hi…
In recognition of the American Library Assn.’s 2008 Summer Reading Program: Catch the Reading Bug, I am compiling and editing a book titled Bees, Beetles, Butterflies and Other Beguiling Bugs: Folktales, Songs and Stories From Around the World.
I am a storyteller/teacher living in Sonoma, CA. I am doing this as a volunteer effort for other storytellers, librarians and teachers to use when preparing their stories for this summer. I am not selling the book.
I would like to use your image of the coming-and-going bees as part of the section on bees.
Will you grant permission for this use?
Thanks for your consideration.
Jackie Baldwin
Story Lovers World
http://www.story-lovers.com
Comment by Jackie Baldwin — April 3, 2008 @ 9:48 am