To Bee or Not To Bee: Cell Phones Behind Colony Collapse Disorder?

Science is stranger than fiction, frequently. As I like to say - science is silly, science is scary, science is sexy. File this one solidly under scary!

By now you may have heard of CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder, which has been seriously depopulating the bees agriculture depends upon, throughout the US, Europe and, possibly, Canada. There are a lot of theories as to what the culprit is behind the mass die-off. Mostly it's a mystery.

Now there is a new one which sounds a bit like something written by the folks who penned Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, or some other B-grade sci-fi flick: Cell phones and their microwave transmitters may be behind the CCD that is wiping out bee populations in North America and Europe. I wish it was a joke! Nope - the theory goes that bees navigation is throw off by the radiation involved in mobile telephone systems. This comes from researchers at Landau University, according to the Independant's article.

Back in March, an alternative health reporter posted that Electromagnetic Radiation could be behind the bee die off. he ahs some interesting references and one link I saw that seems to make some sense is from HESE, the Human Ecological Social Economical project.. Again the idea is that EM from a variety of sources, in particular anything using what are known as VLF or ELF waves - very low frequency/extra-low frequency) which have been shown to have effects on some animals health, particularly so near power corridors.

I did a bit of research into this back in the late 80's when I
was bored and had time to poke around at U of O in the Vanier library. Unfortunately I cannot recall the name of the books and publications I read. It was forever ago! I looked into it because I used to get migraines whenever I visited an aunt who's place backed up onto the huge power corridor that runs through part of Scarborough, in Toronto.

Here is some older information the US National Institute of Health on effect of EM in the work place.