Yesterday I posted this Omega Letter post about bees disappearing mysteriously and the effect this could have on our food supply.

Today I refer you to this article from the Independent in the UK, which postulates the problem of the disappearing bee colonies may be caused by radiation given off by mobile phones.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees’ navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive’s inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London’s biggest bee-keepers, announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs insisted: “There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK.”

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world’s crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, “man would have only four years of life left”.

German research has long shown that bees’ behaviour changes near power lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn, who carried it out, said this could provide a “hint” to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: “I am convinced the possibility is real.”

Until I read the two articles I didn’t realize how important bees are in our food chain. I guess I always thought of them as something I wanted to stay away from because I didn’t want to get stung, but I never thought of them pollinating anything but flowers, if I thought about it at all.

My husband and I each have a cell phone. To show you how much we use them we have 450 minutes we share monthly. We may use 30-45 minutes a month between us on a heavy month.

Naturally, if we are on a trip, we use them more because we don’t have to worry about long-distance charges. When we took a cruise in Hawaii we added minutes for that month so we could call our children and grandchildren on the mainland, but we cut back to our 450 shared minutes after the trip.

It is a pet peeve of mine to see someone in a doctor’s office, store or any other public place walking around with a cell phone while talking loudly enough it’s difficult not to hear what they are saying.

I prefer a land line to a cell phone and use my cell only when necessary.

Now, research is beginning to show cell phones may be more of a nuisance than just the examples I’ve given.

Written by ~J~

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