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  • From: Richard Stewart <rstewart AT zoomtown.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] FW: GO NOFA Forum Cellphones Cause Bees to Swarm to Their Death, Says a New Study
  • Date: Fri, 13 May 2011 22:56:40 -0400

Here is a link that the article links to, which is another article that discusses much more information and has a better title: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1385907/Why-mobile-phone-ring-make-bees-buzz-Insects-infuriated-handset-signals.html

And here is the actual data/abstract about the researcher and the paper that was published.

Mobile phone-induced honeybee worker piping
Daniel FAVRE. Apidologie
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

Received 24 June 2009 – Revised 29 March 2010 – Accepted 8 April 2010 
Online First™, 13 April 2011

Abstract – The worldwide maintenance of the honeybee has major ecological, economic, and political
implications. In the present study, electromagnetic waves originating from mobile phones were tested for
potential effects on honeybee behavior. Mobile phone handsets were placed in the close vicinity of honeybees.
The sound made by the bees was recorded and analyzed. The audiograms and spectrograms revealed that active
mobile phone handsets have a dramatic impact on the behavior of the bees, namely by inducing the worker
piping signal. In natural conditions, worker piping either announces the swarming process of the bee colony or
is a signal of a disturbed bee colony.

http://www.apidologie.org/  (you need to pay to get the whole paper, one of the reasons why I like researchers that release via places like Plos ONE that lead to more transparency to avoid headlines that claim things the paper does not).

This has been discussed over on the Bee-L list.  I honestly thought this was a completely different study.  It was not.  No where in the paper does the researcher or his work link deaths of honeybees to cell phones.

I think its important to note that A) lots of beekeepers keep bees near cell phone towers and under power lines and that B) many losses from CCD have happened in regions where there are no cell phone towers.

That is not to say that the research is not interesting, it is and I'd like to see something a bit more solid in the research like say an actual RF transmitter that is shielded to prevent signal leak and then an easy on and off.  This research was done a shoe string and shows more, I think that bees, maybe use more methods of communicating and directional awareness than we understand than it does anything about deaths of honey bees.  It take nearly a half hour of exposure to the transmitting phone before the bees react, which is curious.  Why so long?  Does it have TRUE real world impact and if so what?  Not enough info yet it seems.  Hopefully they will get more money to do more research and find out what it is that actually causes the distress.

Its also interesting to note that doing a story on Honey Bees and Disaster gets a massive amount of traffic, regardless of content.  :)

On a market related note, we are now up to 60 colonies.  We just placed two on the Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati as a part of a local food program for the Hilton Hotel.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106

On May 13, 2011, at 8:50 PM, Road's End Farm wrote:


On May 13, 2011, at 8:47 PM, Richard Stewart wrote:

My apologies, found it.

The study does not show that cell phones cause bees to swarm to  
their deaths.  The study suggests that cell phones MAY cause the  
bees to become agitated if palced in the bottom of the hive.


Could you post a link to it, Richard?

Thanks --


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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