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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Bee shortage hypothesis

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  • From: list@ginda.us
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Bee shortage hypothesis
  • Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:20:08 -0400

On Apr 16, 2007, at 10:06 AM, nbeaureg@student.umass.edu wrote:

it is within the realm o my conception that
such radiation Might and/or Could cause bees
to lose there way.

BUT for me the sticky part of this hypothesis is that
colonies are not then consumed by pests.

ncb



That was exactly my response. While it's possible that mobile phones could cause bees to abandon (or lose) their hives, there are two major problems with attributing colony collapse disorder to mobile phones.

1) if the bees just got lost, why would other pests that usually attack undefended hives not attack these hives?

2) CCD seems to have started in the US, and be most serious here. We are well behind the rest of the world in our adoption of mobile phones. (probably because we had better land-line service than the rest of the world.) While it's true that a different mobile phone technology is most popular here (Verizon and Sprint use a system that is mostly used in the US. Cingular and most of the other carriers use the technology that is used in most every other country.) and it might be worse for bees, that technology is still extremely rare or nonexistant in other countries. So if the problem were mobile phones, either we should have been the last nation to be hit, or we should be the only nation to be hit, depending on exactly what the problems are.

I am familiar with the Independent (the quote newspaper) and in general it's pretty good. But even good newspapers have trouble covering science, and this article seems to be bad science.

Ginda




Quoting "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>:


ARE MOBILE PHONES WIPING OUT OUR BEES?
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
The Independent
April 15, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/ article2449968.ece
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some
scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food
shortages, as the world's harvests fail.
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