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Are mobile phones killing our bees?
United Kingdom Created: 17 Apr 2007
There are many reasons to deplore mobile phones. Ask any actor whose big emotional climax has been ruined by that shrill trilling from the third row.
Ask anyone on buses or trains who, hearing the clarion call, rummages furiously in their pockets just in case it is for them.
And when it turns out to be for the person in the next seat, has to sit through one end of an interminable, meandering conversation about a business deal, some domestic trivia or where to meet for a drink.
Now, though, these must-have accessories of 21st century living are being blamed for something potentially a lot more serious.
Scientists believe mobile phones could be the cause of the mysterious disappearance of millions of bees, which play a vital role in both agriculture and horticulture.
In the US the commercial bee population has declined by about two-thirds because of an epidemic of what is known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), where nearly all the bees in a hive suddenly desert it.
The condition is spreading to Europe, and one leading English bee-keeper, John Chapple, reports that 23 of his 40 hives in the London area have been deserted.
The theory is that signals from mobile phones interfere with the bees' natural radar, the inbuilt sat-nav systems that guide them home to the hive, however far they have flown in their quest for pollen.
A German researcher has found that bees refuse to return to their hive when mobile phones are placed alongside it.
Lost and disoriented, they die. The result is abandoned hives, a possible honey shortage and, most gravely, a lack of pollinators for our flowers and crops.
One of the most potent symbols of natural efficiency and production could become an eery sign of the sacrifice we are making for technological progress. Marie-Celeste-like hives could become the norm, rather than the frightening exception.
The mobile phone is the third reported major threat to the world bee population, which is estimated to have declined by about 60 per cent since 1970.
There are two principal kinds of bee - the honey bee (apis mellifera and the larger bumblebee bombus terrestris - and both of them have suffered devastating losses.
Before it fell prey to CCD, the honey bee was hit by another scourge - a parasite, originating in Indonesia, called varroa destructor.
Arriving in Britain in 1993, it decimated honey bees in the wild, as well as those kept in hives. An antidote was discovered in time to save some domestic swarms, but most wild honey bees perished.
The bumblebee, which lives in nests on the edge of grassland, plays a hugely important role in pollination. But in recent years it has been the victim of changing farming practices, involving increased use of insecticides and new methods of haymaking.
Nowadays, hay meadows are cut more often, starting earlier in the season. This makes for better yields of hay, but it means death to the wild flowers that used to flourish in late summer.
That deprives bumblebees of an important source of pollen: already two of the 20 British species of bumblebee have become extinct because of this change in farming habits.
Bees are not, on the face of it, the most obvious candidates for public sympathy. They are not majestic like whales, winsome like seals nor cuddly like koalas. They sting, they are a flaming nuisance at barbecues and, to the uninitiated, they look a bit like wasps - everyone's least favourite garden pest.
Yet we need them far more than we need whales, seals, or koalas.
In 1638, the agricultural writer Gervase Markham declared: "Of all the creatures which are fit for the use of man, there is nothing more necessary, wholesome or more profitable than the bee."
In more recent times, Albert Einstein calculated that if bees suddenly ceased to exist, mankind could not survive for more than four years.
Without their help in carrying pollen from plant to plant as they gather nectar, hundreds of varieties of flowers, fruit and vegetables would be wiped from the horticultural map or seriously depleted.
So without the humble bumblebee helping our agricultural production along, we would soon go hungry - or, at the very least, be seriously limited in what foods we could grow successfully.
In recognition of their importance Defra - the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - runs the Honeybee Health Programme, employing 40 bee inspectors whose job is to monitor hives and other habitats, advising keepers how to avoid disease so as to ensure that their bees keep buzzing.
In 2005, Defra threatened to cut the number of inspectors but, stung by protests from bee keepers, dropped the plan. And although the Department says there is no evidence that CCD has reached Britain, the experience of Mr Chapple and other beekeepers seems to suggest that it has.
The bee was one of the very first creatures that mankind learned to domesticate. Honey bees were among the first livestock introduced into the American colonies by Europeans in the 17th century.
Not for another hundred years, though, were their pollinating achievements fully appreciated.
The notable gardener Philip Miller, who helped create the glorious Chelsea Physic Garden, was the first to observe that pollen was not spread principally by the wind, as had been believed, but by bees.
A few years later, scientists concluded that flowers produced nectar specifically to attract pollinating insects. The social life of the bee is the very model of militant feminism. Hives or nests are dominated by a queen, whose principal role is to lay eggs - some 200,000 a year.
Most of these hatch into females, who are sterile and are known as workers because they collect all the nectar from flowers.
The only function of the males, or drones, is to impregnate the queen, though only a few manage to achieve it. It is a dubious honour, because they die as soon as the act as completed.
Not that the other males do any better: at the end of summer they are massacred by the female workers in what is called "the slaughter of the drones".
At the same time, all the queens in a hive engage in a fight to the death, leaving a single survivor to produce next year's brood.
All bumblebees except the queen die over the winter. Some honey bees survive by hibernating, living on the honey they have stored during the summer. Fortunately, for us they make more than they need, allowing humans to harvest the surplus.
In one summer a worker bee, visiting up to 100 flowers on each foray from the hive, will produce just one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.
To make a pound jar, the bees will, between them, have flown 55,000 miles and sniffed at two million flowers. In doing so, they will have transferred countless specks of pollen between flowers, starting the process of seed production.
A hive, then, is a miracle of efficient organisation, where all the inmates know their place and the contribution they are expected to make. If our addiction to mobile phones means that they die because they cannot find their way home, who will do the job instead?
So next time you are tempted to phone your partner from the train, announcing you will be home for tea at the usual time, stop and consider. As a result of your call, a flock of bees heading happily towards their hive in Hornchurch might suddenly feel the urge to switch direction and go to Huddersfield instead, perishing somewhere along the M1.
And when you do eventually get home for tea, do not be too surprised to find the honey jar empty.
by MICHAEL LEAPMAN Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=448761&in_page_id=1770
Click here to view the source article.
Source: Agnes Ingvarsdottir: by MICHAEL LEAPMAN Daily Mail

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