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and this is how the world will end?

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:38 pm
by Dana Sheets
Not with a bang, but a buzz...
http://news.independent.co.uk/environme ... 449968.ece
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. 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.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

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".

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 3:15 am
by IJ
Why would handsets keep parasites and other bugs out of honey left behind? And why would cell phones suddenly cause the population to plummet when they've been around a while? Hmmm. But bees have had a rough time of it. Several parasite outbreaks before this.

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:44 am
by Stryke
At least that means we dont have to worry about global warming !!!


doomed we are doomed !!!!

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:48 pm
by dejsis
All clowning apart it would be rather befitting if this was the proverbial banana peel that humanity slipped on.

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 5:27 am
by Stryke
But this is hilarious , not because it couldnt be a problem , but the fatality that all humans would die .....

Hands up who would have an idea how to manually pollinate crops without bees .

things were sure easier when we just had to worry about the Russians ....

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 3:52 am
by 2Green
What lunacy, what hysteria.

The radio frequencies used by cellphones ( there are four in quad-band) have been in use for decades, and many more have been in use in much greater signal-strengths.

SHOW ME the research where these affect bees.

A little ignorance goes a long way: If I could only bottle it I could make a million.

Oh, and, "don't forget to ask for your "Miracle Spring Water"!!!

Will it never end?

~N~

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:19 am
by Stryke
I for one miss the Russians , life was so much easier when we just had to worry about the commies ......

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:10 pm
by Panther
Just reading the quotes, I initially thought this was a spoof. Then I went to the website. I can't really tell if this is legit or not... The site seems to be very serious and legit, but even in other stories, I came across sections that seemed too outrageous to me. I haven't found any corroborating stories from other sources, so...

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 3:29 pm
by dejsis
The fact remains. Wether it's cellphones or not, we have lost 70% of the bee population.

Apparently, Einstein calculated that if bees were gone humans would follow only four years later. Granted a lot of things have changed since then....

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 6:18 pm
by Panther
Thanks dejsis... I was obvioulsy doing an incorrect search trying to find sources for cell phones causing bee population declines. After looking some more, I am surprised to find the large decline in the honey bee population (from whatever causes)! This isn't a good omen at all and it isn't something that I've heard about until now. (Granted, I've been busy with a lot of pressing matters in the recent past, but still...) Have there been any discussions on what can be done to reverse this?

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:58 pm
by f.Channell
There was a large parasite problem 10-14 years ago and the bees dropped way off.
They came back.

I still got one eye open though for the "killer" bees they warned me about in the 70's.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071718/usercomments

F.

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 11:33 am
by Dana Sheets
I think what has folks worried is that in the past the drop-offs were limited by region - but now they're happening in multiple regions at the same time.

So long and thanks for all the pollen...

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:11 am
by f.Channell
Got to admit.
First warm day and I was working outside and didn't see a single bee.

Why can't cell phones bother mosquitoes?
I'd use up all my minutes killing those buggers.

F.

Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:15 pm
by Kevin Mackie
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.

Placed nearby? Not placed and USED? A mobile phone simply placed radiates nothing. It has to transmit.

So maybe its the Lithium Ion battery packs out-gassing.

Maybe it the plastic case out-gassing.

That crap about bees behave funny around power lines and some correlation to the effect of cell phones is simply loopy. The frequencies and power densities are orders of magnitude apart.

Scientists, my ass.

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:21 am
by Dana Sheets
nitial studies of dying colonies revealed a large number of disease organisms present, with no one disease being identified as the culprit, vanEngelsdorp explains. Ongoing case studies and surveys of beekeepers experiencing CCD have found a few common management factors, but no common environmental agents or chemicals have been identified.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 190612.htm
A detailed, up-to-date report on Colony Collapse Disorder can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium Web site at http://maarec.org.