Sunday, May 11, 2008

Bees and Cell Phones

See? I'm not completely insane! Cell phones ARE making the animals wacky!

Apparently, scientists are looking at cell phone radiation as a possible culprit in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). They went looking through previous work, and according to a study that had been done in Germany in 2003, when cell phones were placed near hives, as much as 70% of the colony failed to find their way home after foraging. Now I'm not sure how much radiation they were exposed to in order to have this effect, but that's what's happening with CCD, as well. The bees aren't dying in the hive, they just aren't there anymore. So it's possible something like this is at least involved.

Of course, I am also reading that certain pesticides used against aphids can cause bees to behave erratically.

I have to wonder, if we ever actually figure out what's causing this, and it turns out to be something we aren't willing or able to change...what happens?

Combine the fact that bees pollinate most everything except our grains, with the grain issues due to weather (not mentioning corn for ethanol, I'm not!), and I'd say we're in for a long, bumpy ride this year on food prices/supply.

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