Cell Phones and Honey Bees

Few people know a lot about my personal background (which is wide and varied to say the least) but once upon a time, I used to keep bees. I enjoyed very much learning to care for the hives, harvest honey and bees wax and enjoyed the connection with these amazing little wonders of nature.

I ran across an article about bees that gave me a big psychic "uh-oh!" instantly this morning. Sometimes that happens when I scan headlines and check out little bits of news from around the world. This one happened to come from Korea, but the problem is a universal one...one concerning the huge boom of cell phone tower building.

It had to do with the work of an environmentalist, Dr. Sainudeen Pattazhy and his study of bees and beehives. Basically, the report says that mobile phone towers are posing a threat to the honey bee population with the electromagnetic radiation they utilize. The threat is to worker bees who go out to collect nectar from flowers near the towers. Pattazhy noticed that the honey bee population and pollination in areas around the towers was being affected. This puzzled him and he went on to do further research. He placed a cell phone near a beehive (turned on but not in active use.) The entire colony collapsed within 5-10 days because the worker bees failed to return to their home, leaving only the queens, eggs and hive bound immature bees to fend for themselves and thus starve.

While many studies have been done on the language of the "dance of bees" in instructing them how to get from hive to flowers, I don't know if we as human beings totally understand the nature of what guides bees back to their hives. Something here bears quick investigation. With no bees, we have to crops that are pollinated by them. Less pollination ultimately means less food with which to feed everyone.

Does this mean that if you have your cell phone on your person you'll be less bothered by bees? Hmmm, dunno the answer to that one, but it also seems to be worth someones study.