Omelet wrote:
In article .com,
"simy1" wrote:

On Apr 15, 9:12 am, "Johnny" wrote:
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants
suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature
workers. 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.
German experiments have shown that cell phones disrupt a bee
navigation system.

Now THAT is interesting!

Has the demise of our bee populations been directly linked to the
increasing popularity of cellphones?

I doubt it.

I can't see it accounting for the sudden collapse of the colonies. A
gradual one, yes, but not a sudden one. The study that this was based on
is in question now as well. One site I read couldn't find the study (or
a recent version) from the source. They're wondering now if it was
misquoted (much like Albert Einstein's supposed quote that "if the bees
disappeared, man would follow in four years" or words to that affect).

As well, if it were cell phones, you'd expect Britain to be more
affected than the US or Europe, but the US is more affected than either
where cell phone use is simply not as "dense" as it is in Britain. Also,
cell phones have been in use longer in Europe than the US, so you'd
expect it to have occurred there first, but it didn't.

Also, everything points to a pathogen affecting individual colonies
while a colony sitting next to it is fine. What's strange is that the
affected colony is not being raided by the healthy ones, which usually
happens when a colony gets sick. They believe something in the colony
itself is repelling the invaders...including other insect invaders like
moths.

A telecom specialist on one site could find no correlation between the
location of the bee's deaths and the pattern of increased use of cell
phone frequencies globally.

He did, however, note that bees are affected by the Earth's magnetic
field which has moved more in the last 300 years than in the previous
5000. We know the magnetic field has flipped completely in the past and
this increased movement could be an indication that another flip is
imminent. One wonders now if the bees are the canary in coalmine...

Curiouser and curiouser...

..

MMVIII