Are Cell Phones Wiping Out Our Bees?!

Just because the bees are disappearing now and we have had cellphones for a number of years does not mean it can't be them. By the same argument it can't be the weakening of the magnetic field since that has been happening far longer then cellphones! Nor can it be the sun due to the same argument since the sun has been around, and changing, longer than cellphones (I'm 100% certain of that fact!)

Like all systems there's a tipping point. The question is what is it? Mobile phone usage and the number of masts has been increasing rapidly in recent years and so it could be that we have now reached that tipping point.

For what it's worth I don't believe that it's due to the magnetic field of the earth nor the sun since these are global phenomena. This would mean that any effect they have would affect bees worldwide at the same time everywhere. This is not what is happening we are seeing a problem in the US followed by Europe/UK a year later. We are also seeing different effects. In some areas the bees are missing, in others dead, in others no change! So what is needed is to assess the environment in each of these areas to find out what is different.

It is not necessarily a predator either. When an insect dies (even from natural causes) you can bet it gets eaten pretty quick! We would also have to have a predator that can cross the Atlantic in rather large numbers. Sure enough a predator could be carried by ourselves but it would have to breed and spread damn fast once it arrived without anyone noticing!

At the current moment we just don't know but if it does turn out to be cellphones there will be a backlash like the global warming debate. Since it would require some people to give up something of their cushy cosy selfish lives....

The difference is that as it has been said several times the Earth's magnetic field is not only weakening, but recently has been doing so dramatically, and the next solar cycle which could have begun already has been predicted to be up to 50% stronger than any cycle we have experienced in a while.

Neither the sun nor the Earth's magnetic field have "stayed the same" as the previous member claimed. They are in constant flux and change, and in recent years the changes have been more dramatic and will continue to be more dramatic for at least the duration of this next solar cycle.

[edit on 20-4-2007 by Muaddib]

One more thing, about the claim that it can't be the sun or the Earth's magnetic field because we would be seeing these dissapearances happening all over at the same time. The fact is that the weakening of the Earth's magnetic field is not uniform, in some places it has weakened more than in others. The weaker the magnetic field of the Earth, the more UV rays that reach the Earth which would affect the sight of the bees, which use a polarized system in their eyes which they use to look at the sun and use it as a compass when there are no clouds in the skies. During cloudy days bees rely more on the magnetic field of the Earth.

There are places on Earth that the magnetic field is 30% weaker, meanwhile in most parts the weakening is 10%. These anomalies have been growing and will continue to grow.

NARRATOR: Thousands of these observations, together with early measures of the local strength of the field, have enabled Jeremy to reconstruct the ebb and flow of the Earth's magnetism over the past three centuries. And it's what this reveals about one region in particular that's significant.

JEREMY BLOXHAM: We've seen very abrupt changes in the Earth's magnetic field beneath the South Atlantic Ocean.

NARRATOR: Beneath the South Atlantic, Jeremy has found clear evidence for a region of magnetic anomalies, places were the field has already started to reverse. And these anomalies are growing.

JEREMY BLOXHAM: As we get into the beginning of the 20th century, we see the emergence of a new patch of reverse flux, a region where the field lines, instead of coming out of the core, are looping back into the core. And that patch then drifts towards the west, hooking up with this other patch of reverse flux to create a large region of what we call the "South Atlantic anomaly," where the field is about 30 percent weaker. And that patch has grown substantially during the last hundred years in particular. So one question we're all asking ourselves at the moment is, "Is the Earth's magnetic field about to flip?"

NARRATOR: In a region of the core 2,000 miles beneath the South Atlantic, the magnetic currents have reversed direction, canceling out the main field, causing its strength to decline. If things continue like this, then we could experience a magnetic phenomenon the Earth has not seen for 780,000 years, a complete flip of the entire global field.

JEREMY BLOXHAM: There's really no question about whether the Earth's magnetic field will reverse again. The question is not, if that's going to happen, it's when that's going to happen.

GARY GLATZMAIER: Actually, in the last few hundred years, the intensity of the magnetic field on the Earth has been decreasing, which is an indication that maybe we're in for a reversal. The average time between reversals is on the order of a few hundred thousand years. We're actually sort of due for one.

www.pbs.org...

[edit on 20-4-2007 by Muaddib]

Correct the magnetic field is not wholly understood. The magnetic field has flipped many times in the history of the planet. Meaning magnetic north and south poles change positions. If that isn't an abrupt Earth change I don't know what is. Could we be on the edge of a pole flip? Who knows. But the facts are that yes poles have flipped in the past, and yes they will flip in the future.

So what happens proceeding, during and after a pole flip? Wel the scientists just don't know much about it. One idea is that numerous magnetic norths may appear randomly around the planet for quite some time. Other freaky incidents as well. I'll try to find some articles...

^^^^^^

Hey my thoughts exactly heh
Good finds digging up the article.

Anyways, i was looking online for a link to corroborate what i was saying about the bees. Here is a good article that talks about the navigational abilities of bees. This is based on Karl von Frisch's work, who in the 1940s won the Nobel prize for his experiments on the navigational abilities of bees.

The problem which remains mainly unsolved is the way, how the bees get and transform navigation informations. Some suppose the bees are collecting visual landmarks. Others involve their magnetic sense organ. Obviously the navigation abilities of bees are amazing. In order to find their way home, they memorize the angle of flight to the position of the sun. They even compute the sun's movement in the sky. They know how to measure the flight-distance, involving the wind's force. And over and above that, during their dance in the dark of the beehive they transpose the course-angle to the sun relatively to the earth's gravitation field and the distance to a certain rythme of the 'belly dance'.

www.restena.lu...

[edit on 20-4-2007 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by greatlakes
^^^^^^

Hey my thoughts exactly heh
Good finds digging up the article.

Thanks.

There is a lot more going on with Climate Changes than most people realize. We are in for some strange and at times they might be even dramatic changes, and we have to learn to adapt to them.

I wonder if it could be our cells, but....I need one bit of information. How quickly have the bees disappeared? Most reports I hear from various places say about half are gone, and yet this is only now making news and the reports keep coming. Did they disappear in a year or less? anything drastic like that.

My point of course is that cell phone useage has been as huge as it is, surely for a few years,so why just now...is it killing this many bees?

I am therefore not convinced it's the cells.

We've had meaner sunspots last year and haven't followed them this year, but maybe it's solar, and this explains why the bees are disappearing in so many different places, even way out in the hawaiian islands. Is it possible that the sun is glaring more UV and this is harming the bees, their ability to see, navigate and even survive?

Originally posted by Sunnygal
I wonder if it could be our cells, but....I need one bit of information. How quickly have the bees disappeared? Most reports I hear from various places say about half are gone, and yet this is only now making news and the reports keep coming. Did they disappear in a year or less? anything drastic like that.

It's a hard to peg a specific start of course, once bees start to dieoff, it take some time to hear about the reporting, and the reports most likely were delayed due to questions of if it was really happening etc. But most of the news out on this seems to be within the last 4-5 months. Possible causes have ranged from:

• Cell-phone
  
• Pesticides
  
• Genetically modified crops (GM)
  
• Bee parasites
  
• Unknown Bee diseases
  
• Genetic weakness due to breeding interference by man
  
• Earth changes, magnetic field changes, global warming etc
  

There is a bee survey available at: beealert.blackfoot.net...

This should report to universities and researchers on the bee disappearance. I would also like to receive the survey results...Have an email in to these folks concerning this.

[edit on 24-4-2007 by greatlakes]

Well, I just saw a video from Idaho and apparently one of the beekeepers is saying this year bees have returned as he had an increase in the population of bees this year, but last year he had many loses.

They report in that video that the bees have been dying. At the end of the video the reporter states that the populations of bees have been increasing this year meanwhile last year there was a decrease in their populations.

The video can be found at the following link.

www.ktvb.com...

[edit on 24-4-2007 by Muaddib]

I wonder if anyone has looked into what role the canola plant could have in all this.

We have tons of acres of canola with glyphosate being applied to it.

www.honeybee.com.au...

There are a few problems for bees working canola:
1. The farmers often need to spray the crop, and bee deaths may result. It is best for the beekeeper to let the farmer and local air spray company know of his presence and apiary location, so if spraying needs to occur, the farmer or pilot can notify the beekeeper who can remove his bees prior to spraying.

2. The crop can finish flowering very suddenly, causing nutritional problems with rapidly breeding bees. It is best to move the bees to a new food source before the end of flowering.

3. Canola can stimulate massive swarming problems in honey bees, but vigorously applied swarm control methods can reduce this problem.

Now I dont know what effect glyphosate has on bees.. but if it has any. That is a major problem.


Roundup ready canola has been in canada since 1996 and the usa since 1999.

In the year 2000, canada had over 4 million acres of the stuff. That is 4 million acres of potential problem.

Think about it.

I read that it is "safer" to spray around bees in the evening.

Most farmers spray first thing in the morning. So when do bees forage?

Between 7AM and 6PM.

This originally posted by loam new news concerning some missing bees now in Taiwan.:

Originally posted by loam

Ta iwan stung by millions of missing bees

Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday.

Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported. Taiwan's TVBS television station said about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan.

A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied, the paper said.

More...

[edit on 26-4-2007 by greatlakes]

This bee issue seems like its becoming more and more widespreaad, not only in the USA but all over the globe now.

Reports from Taiwan, Japan, Germany and many countries.

I can understand a localized issue on a small scale, but to be global on such a large scale, what could be causing this? This just keeps getting starnger and stranger. Now it seems to be garnering some media attention, but really no answers.

Originally posted by greatlakes
This bee issue seems like its becoming more and more widespreaad, not only in the USA but all over the globe now.

Reports from Taiwan, Japan, Germany and many countries.

I can understand a localized issue on a small scale, but to be global on such a large scale, what could be causing this? This just keeps getting starnger and stranger. Now it seems to be garnering some media attention, but really no answers.

What do you think is more of a probable cause for this happening in several places all over the globe? Is everyone around the world using the same pesticides?

Why does it come and go as in Idaho where last year they had a loss in the population of bees and in the production of honey yet this year the production and population of bees has increased greatly?

I am pretty certain all this points to the fact that the sun's output has been increasing strongly lately and the fact that the magnetic field of the Earth is weaker now than it has been for the last 780,000 years.

We are in a period where the magnetic field fluctuates as it is weakening. The process is very similar to what has happened to the Ozone layer, where for a year the ozone holes are bigger and in other years the size of the ozone layer holes diminishes. The magnetic field of the Earth, and the fluctuations of the sun's output work in the same manner, they don't remain constant.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe in coincidences.

If you have a disturbance that involves a population decrease and increase I would imagine the possibility of it being pesticide/herbicide related increases.

Why?

Crop rotation.

See what the majority of crops were in the area one year and see what the majority were another year.


Chemicals vary from crop to crop.

Did the world crop producers decided to change the pesticides they use at the same time?

And appart from the claims form the idaho news service, which didn't provide any evidence on how they knew bees were dying, the bees are dissapearing. At least that's what is being reported in most of the places where this is happening.

Bees, birds, frogs and other species of animals that use the sun and the Earth's magnetic field to find their way are being affected.

Is it just a coincidence all this is happening when we know the Sun's output and the Earth's magnetic field have been out of whack lately?

Originally posted by Muaddib

Bees, birds, frogs and other species of animals ...

Can you provide any links to stories containing historical statistics concerning these creatures?

More importantly... does any information crossover, and can anything be put together.

Pretty good information here:
en.wikipedia.org...

Detailed info about spraying:
extension.oregonstate.edu...


Malathion could have done some serious damage to bees in my opinion.
en.wikipedia.org...

Manitoba, Province of Canada, ordered the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba to be sprayed in July 2005 as part of the West Nile virus campaign. Prior to this, Malathion was used over the last couple of decades on regular basis during summer months to kill nuisance mosquitos, but homeowners were allowed to exempt their properties if they chose. Today, Winnipeg is the only major city in Canada with an ongoing Malathion nuisance adult mosquito control program.

I remember seeing it on TV a few times and every time I seen any video, they do it at night.

Bees might not be out in full force at night, but malathion is pretty long lasting.

According to the pdf file I linked:
extension.oregonstate.edu...

It is hazardous to honey bees for 5 days after application.

7 days for alfalfa leafcutting bees.

Can't really rule that one out without doing some research. Cell phones? Dunno. Not every area has cell phone service. Not every area uses hazardous products either.

Here is one story I began in 2004 where back then the mystery was birds dissapearing and dying too.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There are several links in that thread which shows what has been happening to birds.

This started with birds close to the coasts dissapearing, or which ended up dying on the beaches, and apparenlty this problem has been moving inland. At least that's what I surmise from what has been happening.

As i remember correctly there were other species of animals who were also dissapearing. There were several threads we had about this back then.

[edit on 27-4-2007 by Muaddib]