Just thought I'd share this interesting emailed article I got from a Pitaya forum:

Here is an interesting article on one theory as to why the
bees are disappearing.

Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Our Bees?

Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for
mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees. (By Geoffrey Lean and
Harriet Shawcross published April 15, 2007 in The
Independent, a British newspaper)

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror
film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile
phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's
harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off
by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible
answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in
the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that
pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed
that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to
continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes
with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously
home-loving species from finding their way back to their
hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to
back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's
inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and
a few immature worker. The vanished bees are never found, but
thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife
and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left
behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the
abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half
of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have
lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70
per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain,
Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one
of London's biggest bee- keepers, announced that 23 of his 40
hives have been abruptly abandoned.

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the
world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein
once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only
four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites,
pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed,
but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bee' behavior changes
near power lines. Now a limited study at Landau University
has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when
mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried
it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.


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Thanks Patty.

But anyone could design a very simple experiment to prove or disprove this correlation if one really needed to go scientific. We have technologies to install camera on a single bee, certainly these types of correlation can be proved or disproved easily and cheaply too.

The idea is too good to be true. Thanks for the report Patty! I'm still skeptical but open-minded. Just a single scientific validation from a credible organization is all I needed to convince me.

Joe

Thanks Joe, I read where other people were wondering why bees abandoned their hives recently for no reason, so it is definately happening all over the world.

I live just outside San Diego and got excellent pollination on my citrus and stone fruits. The bees were buzzing like crazy as I worked outside yesterday!

Or, it could be that there are no cell phones near the bee hives., where ever they may be.

Thank you for the post Patty. I had read this somewhere earlier and found it very interesting. The decline of the honeybee is a serious problem, and any possible cause should be thourghly investigated. Given the gravity of the problem, I am sure that is happening and we shall hear more shortly.

Bees were once very abundant here, with wild colonies as well as domesticated ones. My father kept about 20 hives. A local few people still keep them, but the wild colonies are long gone. The few I see on my citrus are sparse indeed. Most of the pollination is done by bumble bees and other insects.

Ned

The bee keepers in my area blame the hive decline on a Mite that kills the larva. Maybe we don't have enough Bee Keepers with Cell Phones on the East Coast to blame it on.
Terry

Mites are another issue altogether and some of our native bees are resistant to the mites and know how to dispose of them. The domesticated honeybees are vulnerable to the mites but beekeepers can help them out.

But the new malady is even deadlier, that is why they call them Colony Collapse Disorder. The researchers are at a loss as to the actual causes, and this cell phone radiation from the towers may be a possibility.

We know that insects can sometimes sense radiation or vibrations beyond our normal range. Maybe they can see the radiation spectrum from the towers which will also be similar to the same spectrum that they see from our sun and so gets confused. But unless a more credible organization can study this, it should only remain a speculation.

This reminds me of the cell phone-brain cancer hype. Millions of dollars were spent to prove something that had virtually no reason to be believed in the first place. We all know cancer takes years to develop, but even at the EPA lab where I worked we spent big bucks exposing animal to electromagnetic fileds hundreds fo times stronger than cell phones for multiple generations just to prove it false.

The real problem is that chasing hyped rumors with little basis in logic can detract from more informed research that might actually lead to identifying the problem.

As I mentioned in some of my earlier post we are finally seeing a few bees around here after a 2 yr period wheh I did not see a single honey bee. I do not think cell phone use is on the decline, but I do think the mites are.

The colony collapse problem that Joe mentioned is perplexing, the bees just disappear. Unlike many of the other problems with bees, they are not able to collect sick or dying bees from the colony-- making identification of the problem all the more difficult.

The reason they don't find sick or dying bees is because they are not sick, and they die elsewhere. What is presumed, is that the bees leave the hive to collect pollen, but because of some condition or interference they are unable to track their way back to the hive. Therefore, they just wonder off lost, and because they cannot find their way back to the hive they eventually die. - Millet

Recent I read an article about The Bayer corporation paying the bee keepers in Europe big bucks from the damage their product had done to be bees. This product is used a lot in the U.S.A.

Buddinman, what is the "product" used by Bayer Corp?

The pesticide that buddingman is refering to is imidocloprid-- sold under a variety of trade names including Admire, Bayer Tree and Shrub. It is a systemic that European bee keepers say is concentrated in the pollen.

From my perspective it should never be used on flowering trees as it will end up in the fruit and you will be eating a poison.

http://www.journaltimes.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=12512

Quote:

Although CCD is a relatively new phenomenon, a number of pop-theories have developed about the source of the die-off including increased use of cell phones, global warming and the growing of genetically modified crops. Berenbaum points out that CCD exists in places where cell phones are not used and that Illinois, which grows genetically modified crops and would be as susceptible to global warming as any state, has no reported cases. "Some of the best biologists and researchers in the country are working on the problem, " Berenbaum said.

Something a bit more plausible I heard on the radio this morning:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/health/la-hm-bees26apr26,0,1707552.story?coll=sfla-news-science

Quote:

Though scientists from UC San Francisco announced Wednesday that they had identified a parasitic fungus and a virus as two potential causes, the culprit or culprits behind a national phenomenon still have not been definitively confirmed.