[Pil-pc-oceania] seen many bees around lately?

[pacific-edge]

On 23/4/07 7:28 AM, "Adrian Wedd" <adrian at adrianwedd.com> wrote:
> hi folks, 
> having noticed less bees around i've been keeping a keen eye on the news on
> 'colony collapse disorder'.
> 
> i'm wondering if anyone else in australia has noticed less bees buzzing
> around this year?
> 
> A.

Hi bee people...
Appended below is an item from The Ecologist, a UK magazine, which could
perhaps explain your missing bees if you are carrying a mobile phone near a
hive or the hive is near a mobile phone repeater transmitter.

Haven't heard of the claim anywhere else, so like all reports of the type
you can't take it a definitive until others repeat the experiment and get
the same results.

...Russ


APPENDED REPORT:
Mobile phones could lead to bee decline
Radiation from mobile phones might be contributing to the world-wide loss of
bee colonies, a new study has shown.
Date:16/04/2007           Author:News
            
Scientists at Landau University in Germany have demonstrated that the
electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile phones and base stations can
interfere with the bees' navigation systems, making them unable to find
their way back to their hives.

In an experiment conducted by the researchers, bees refused to return to a
hive when a mobile phone was placed nearby.

Although the study is not conclusive, it does offer one possible explanation
for a worldwide decline in the bee population which no-one has so far been
able to explain. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has led to a massive 60 per
cent decline in the number of commercially kept bees on America's West
Coast, and a 70 per cent decline on the East Coast.

In the UK, one bee-keeper in London found over half of his hives
mysteriously abandoned. There are also reports of CCD in Germany,
Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) denies
that CCD is occuring in the UK.

Bees are vital for human survival since they pollinate nearly all our crops.
Albert Einstein famously said that if bees were to suddenly disappear, 'man
would have only four years of life left'.

MORE AT: http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=865