ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area The end of the plug?

Alan, could you elaborate on the bees and phone mast ..

There is a theory that cell towers are screwing up the bees homing abilities so they can't find the hive ... or they are just getting killed by mites.
The only fact is there is a decline in bee populations.

Honey bees travel up to a mile from the hive, quite a distance for a small animal.
Scale equivalent to 80? miles for a human. They know where they are and where the hive is, because they have a built in 'magnetic compass'. Coupled to this, they also know the time of day using polarised daylight, so can compute lattitude and longitude. Nearer the hive they have to use sight to locate the exact entry point of course. Mobile phone masts do give out radio waves that bees can detect and which may possibly impare their homing abilitiies. Many beekeepers say populations in hives do suffer near masts. On the other hand, as long as the mast gives out a constant signal, a fresh bunch of new bees would still have a fixed reference, provided the signals caused no other physiological damage. Bees only forage for about 3 weeks in summer before their wings wear out.
The veroa mite is indeed a serious bee pest world wide. As the climate is warming, we are also getting here giant bee-hunting wasps coming up from southern France and Italy. Great!

Alan

what I know about bees could fit in a thimble, but I know they are quite necessary, and leave them and other flying things alone. they are the primary reason I don't use chemicals around our little place... and enjoy watching them in the spring weaving about the apple and cherry blossoms ....lately I have noticed a few here and there, just not as many. I did read about the mitesa few years ago, but figured that was under control...and now this hooey about cell phones.!

Thanks Alan, I was just sitting here wondering why this problem has popped up only recently, since cell phones have been around for a loooong time now and I happen to live in a dead zone for signal strength.. maybe the bees around here are not affected.

does this problem apply to all bees or just honeybees ?

A bit more detail on Tesla

There was a post on this forum (I looked but could not find it) about a man who built his house too close to over headlines so was getting electric shocks for his building. Obviously eddy-currents induced by the electromagnetic fields of the lines, and was he not trying to claim from the Power Company for his own stupidity ? In fact if I remember was there not a photo of him holding a flourecent tube which was lit due to the EMF?

That guy is the one I was referring to as a hoax. If I could really get a flourecent to light under a power line from the EMF there would be some going in my boat house right now. It just won't happen

cripes, what's next ?

Thanks again, Alan

That's why I love black-outs so much...