First, a few facts to lay some groundwork. Here’s what we know:
- We are currently in the Holocene Extinction — the Sixth Great Mass Extinction of species on Earth.
- Over fifty species are disappearing daily, and unlike past extinctions that involved volcanoes and asteroids, human activities are known to be the culprit this go round.
- Since last autumn, sixty percent of the West Coast commercial bee population has disappeared.
- Since last autumn, seventy percent of the East Coast commercial bee population has also disappeared.
- A study at Germany’s Landau University shows that cell phone radiation could be part of the problem.
Vanishing Bee Theories
Across America, beekeepers are missing millions of bees from their hives. Nobody has figured out what’s happened to the bees, either. The afflicted colonies are found full of honey, pollen, and larvae, but their worker bees have simply left and not returned.
Several theories have been brought forth to explain Colony Collapse Disorder — the name given the missing bee epidemic. One theory suggests CCD is due to changes in pesticides. Another theory blames genetically-modified crops.
The new “cell phone” theory speculates that radiation from mobile phones may be interfering with the bees’ navigation systems. The bees fly away, then can’t find their way back to their hives. As outlandish as this theory sounds, researchers say they now have evidence to back it up.
“I am convinced the possibility is real,” says Dr. George Carlo, who headed a massive U.S. government study of mobile phones in the 1990s.
A World Without Bees
Bees pollinate more than $14 billion worth of U.S. fruits, vegetables and nuts each year.
“Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food,” says Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.
The implications of a mass extinction of bees are pretty scary. Most of the world’s crops are pollinated by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, “man would have only four years of life left”.
Let’s hope bees are one species that survives.
[tags]missing bees, colony collapse disorder, mass extinction, environment[/tags]
Granted this is becoming a serious issue around the world, and the one place that seems not to be affected by this phenomenon is in Oregon. The bee keepers there report that their bee colonies are normal and some are growing bigger in numbers.
But the important thing is that nothing is being said about this on any of the three major news networks. We all know what stories are more important.
In reading about this, I was surprised to find out how many bees were “for hire” and how bee keepers transport their hives to the crops that need pollinating, then give them high-fructose corn syrup for extra energy to pollinate the huge crops. Corn syrup, of course, coming from our abundance of corn, which is abundant because of fertilizers, which are abundant because they’re based on oil. I just found the whole process to be more unnatural than first came to mind when thinking about “bees pollinating crops.” Like a lot of other things, the whole process has been cranked up to support unnatural levels of bees/crops to support unnatural levels of human population.
I heard this story on NPR on the way to work this morning. Interesting theory but it does make sense. Twelve years ago is when cell phones really began to take off.
What would really be cool is if this spring we found out that cell phones prevented mosquitos from feeding on humans…
Thats nice to share the views every one here. Get more info about what medical physicians around the world are saying about the effects of cell phones and electromagnetic frequencies.For more information http://www.harmonicplanet.com
Not to be funny, but the bees may be confused with all the geneticaly engineered crops they have to confront every day.
But there is good news to report from my farm. The frogs on my pond and lake are quite abundant and look normal and healthy. They are supposed to be a first warning sign of any impending disaster in ecology.
Glad to hear that the frogs are doing well…they’re at about the midpoint of the food chain…they eat a lot of lifeforms, and a lot of lifeforms eat them, so if frog populations are normal, then the smaller lifeforms and the bigger lifeforms must be doing normal, too. What you said–they’re a good ecological barometer.