Talk:Colony collapse disorder/Archive 3

Cell phones/Cell Towers/HAARP/GWEN?
Article focuses on HAARP, not mobile phones; lacks geographical correlation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.149.176.44 (talk) 05:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? ] zafiroblue05 | Talk 03:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not disputing anything to do with the theory of cellphones, but that is a shoddy piece of journalism if ever i've seen one. Just look at their use of inaccurate/misquoted statistics and their complete lack of any citations. Someone should notify the editor of the Independent and have them to write a correction to this rampant sensationalism that they've wrapped up as 'Sunday news'. Worse than most bloggers i read. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.9.221.151 (talk) 10:20, 15 April 2007 (UTC).


 * It's utter tripe. If this "theory" were true, we'd be seeing massive losses among hobbyist beekeepers (who primarily keep their bees near their houses and near such radiation sources) and almost none among commercial beekeepers (who keep their bees in orchards and other predominantly rural areas).  In fact, the pattern is exactly reversed.  Essentially all the losses that are being reliably attributed to CCD are being reported from commercial beekeepers and polls of hobbyists report no abnormal loss patterns.  That article is an embarrassment to the newspaper.  Rossami (talk) 12:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * My opinion: even if the cell phone theory is nonsense, it still deserves to be in here. Readers will come here, having seen or heard about the theory, and will be confused as to why it doesn't appear here. The correct approach is not to ignore the theory altogether, but to stick it in along with whatever counter-arguments there are. Korny O&#39;Near 23:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * PLease read the section amd quote immediately above this one; fringe theories do not merit inclusion simply because someone proposes them. The only thing that could conceivably garner such a theory a place in the article is if a scientific paper comes out specifically refuting it. Dyanega 01:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

No one yet knows whether or not the theory has any merit, but it is hardly a "fringe" theory, and regardless of how well-written or not the newspaper article is, it is irresponsible not to make some reference to it in this Wiki-article. Apparently some of the people posting comments here do not understand the scientific process. Confirming or rejecting the theory comes from scientific testing of the hypothesis, not the result of comments by uncredentialed (at least in terms of the Wikisystem) editors here. Leave it in unless and until rejected in publications by qualified scientists. Arjuna 04:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No, you have that exactly backwards. It is a fringe theory and gets left out of the encyclopedia until it is published by qualified scientists (or becomes independently notorious enough to deserve it's own separate article as a fringe theory).  That article does not qualify on either count.  And, by the way, there already is cited evidence rebutting this theory.  Look up Dr J Bromenshenk's description of the placement of cell phone base stations inside hives with no adverse effect.  Rossami (talk) 05:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

No sir, I'm afraid it's you who is mistaken. It is an untested hypothesis by a scientist at an accredited, recognized institution. Kudos for finding the Bromenshenk paper, but this is hardly the last word on the subject. And certainly this story, regardless of its eventual merit, is out there and merits mention. It stays. Btw, your credentials for refuting the citation are...? Arjuna 05:25, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The hypothesis at least merits investigation. It would be interesting to know if the recorded instances of this syndrome in Europe have occurred in areas in which large numbers of tri-band phones are found.  If so it might be interesting to repeat any experiments with transmitters using the bands normally used in N. America.  Hopefully this hypothesis can be disproved, but until it is it has to be taken seriously. -- 158.232.2.32 08:57, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The page for the German research group under discussion is: http://agbi.uni-landau.de/materialien.htm. Some of the material is in English. This is emphatically not "fringe" or "junk" science. It is careful and legitimate research by qualified scientists. Full stop. Now, the theory that this has anything to do with CCD may well be disproven. My point is only that reference to the hypothesis as one of the theories mentioned in the article is valid. Arjuna 11:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The one reference in English that appears to be a peer-reviewed publication indicates that the authors are indeed scientists, but hardly "qualified" - they are physicists, not entomologists, and the actual research was performed by students of environmental sciences. The paper presents no statistical analyses and only a cursory discussion of methods. In fact, with a sample size of 4 hives, it doesn't seem likely to give statistically meaningful results. That being said, if you have no objections to the inclusion of appropriate caveats into the article ALONG WITH the citation, then this citation itself (not the blog extrapolations) can be included, and I will do so now. Dyanega 17:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(Not sure to edit this correctly - please feel free to amend - and btw please excuse my poor english) Well I just came on this article again, as I now do almost every day, to find the latest information on this Bees issue - as Wikipedia appears to be the ONLY serious and updated reference on this problem. I specifically came to read about this "cell phone" buzz - and didn't find anything before coming on this Talk page. Quite frustrating... I almost thought you had missed it! So, I understand very well it's not scientifically proven - but I think even this "not proven thing" should appear in the topic, so readers know it's not proven, or is proven to be junk (which I can't decide!). Isn't there a Wikipedia policy for this ("how to write content, even if it's not proved, or even proved to be false")? And even if such a policy doesn't exist... please add a word about cell phones! (FrenchFred) 90.4.171.40 22:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The study was about DECT Cordless phones, not cell phones. Any "journalist" that did not check his source is guilty of JUNK JOURNALISM.  Please continue the thread down below.Kgrr 10:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * At least two of the researchers involved in this study have now come forward to disavow any connetion of this research to CCD, and to reiterate that they did NOT examine cell phones. I have now updated the article to reflect this, and included a citation. Dyanega 17:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I am removing the following sentence at the end of the section on EM - "Regardless, such an explanation is not compatible with the historical and present patterns of CCD appearance, which have been intermittent and sudden." This statement is a personal opinion since it offers no evidence either for or against it. The statement does not belong here, it is litter; I have done personal research into the wave propogation of HAARP in Alaska, and have a rough hypothesis as to the intermittent and sudden loss of some bees, but I certainly won't litter the article with it since like that sentence, I am not a professional scientist and thus my opinion is 'litter'. To understand what I mean, my own research reveals a possible connection with the use of the HAARP digisonde from April 5 to April 30, 2007 (then again May 3rd to May 22nd and early June 2007) in which waves propagated from the transmitter of that Alaskan facility traveled outwards in 360 degrees, some of which traveled along typical paths SSE down the West Coast and also more east through the SE corner of Arizona and more east into Texas - in the first week between April 8 and 12th, unrelated persons in Clovis CA, Woodland Hills CA and another family in Bisbee AZ reported a massive amount of dead bees found beneath a flowering shrub/tree where the day before the bees had been happily buzzing (according to their reports, neither had used any pesticides for years nor did either have a cold snap of any kind (please see Cosmos Magazine's forum on the Mystery of the Dead Bees pages 5, 7, 9 and 12 of thosee forums). Be aware that you can draw a perfectly straight line from HAARP in Alaska through Clovis CA and Woodland Hills, which is effectively Los Angeles. Another person around May 3rd in Merced said he found dead bees, but according to HAARP’s online data, nothing of the magnitude waves previously propagated occurred then. Someone else wrote from West Coast Canada that they had dead bees in June, and HAARP was active between June 7 and 14th-ish; I hope that person might give me an exact city should they reply to these forums, or anyone for that matter who might have had similar so I can continue to investigate. Please note that Merced CA is fairly well off the straight line from HAARP to Woodland Hills.

HAARP radiates its waves under the 10mhz range, which attenuate to 6.99mhz along the propagation path. It should also be noted these waves tend to be absorbed by the D-Layer of the Ionosphere, but this D-Layer disappears at dusk. The intermittent and sudden loss of bees geographically and time-wise could be explained by how radio waves propagate - they bounce along the sky, hitting only certain land areas while completely skipping others even a few miles distant (shadow). In addition, during that same week in April, HAARP recorded that the Ionosphere was dramatically absorbing incoming space-waves/solar winds/radiation which would only create a cleaner environment for the full spectrum of waves sent by the digisonde. HAARP's waves also produce an afterglow about 630 nanometers long, which bees can easily see but we cannot; bees staying out late or at night wouldn't be unreasonable since it would appear the bee might be confused by the continued "daylight" if one of these waves bounced into their region of the world. HAARP may easily be as viable an interference to bees as herbicides or cell towers (3rd Gen phones now having packets of 220 cycles, within the same range of 190 to 250 cycles for bees).

I hope further research is being completed, and I wonder if all of these factors contribute.Ol Murrani Kasale (talk) 01:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Wrong conclusion in "Pathogens and immunodeficiency"?
I have a problem with the following paragraph: "When a colony is dying, and there are other healthy colonies nearby (as is typical in a bee yard), those healthy colonies may enter the dying colony and rob its provisions for their own use. If the dying colony's provisions were contaminated (by natural or man-made toxins), the resulting pattern (of healthy colonies becoming sick when in proximity to a dying colony) would suggest that of a contagious disease. However, it is often reported in CCD cases that provisions of dying colonies are not being robbed, suggesting that at least this particular factor is not involved in CCD." First it should be "When a colony is dying for any reason" to make clear that not only CCD is meant, and second, how does the (highly interesting) fact that the CCD colonies are not robbed (and parasite invasion delayed) and have any bearing on the possible cause of CCD being pathogens and immunodeficiency or not. If it is not robbed, epidemiology of the neighboring colonies will NOT tell anything about the cause, no? As a matter of fact, if other bees don't rob the stores, doesn't that make pathogen contamination sound more plausible? Maybe someone who is more steeped in the topic can remove this paragraph from "Pathogens and immunodeficiency"? BjornVDM 13:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The point is that toxins can get into healthy colonies when they rob the stores of an contaminated colony - some people have suggested that this is why CCD may be pesticides but look like a disease. Since no one is robbing the stores of CCD colonies, there can be no toxin transmission via this mechanism. I'll think about how to reword it, but the conclusion is sound. Dyanega 01:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The reports that I've read have not said that there is "no robbing", only that there is a delay in the robbing. They further report that when equipment (and stores) from a CCD colony are put onto a strong colony, the strong colony rapidly succumbs, whether or not there are still bees in the CCD'd colony.  I don't think they've ruled out this transmission mechanism yet.  Rossami (talk) 03:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * What reports, and where have you read them? If this is true, then the article needs to be changed to reflect this information. 138.23.134.119 16:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

A very large assumption that's oft repeated but never (to my knowledge) proved
I believe this quote is unworthy of Wikipedia, because it's simply an assumption (and it's also contrary to my lifelong experience) -
 * and when honey bees are absent from a region, the native pollinators quickly reclaim the niche

This needs to be rewritten to remove the assumption (or provide solid citations on it). My observation (and I've been doing this carefully for years is that, where conditions are good enough to maintain high honey bee populations, they also maintain good populations of native bees; the opposite also being true, that where honey bees are absent or scarce, so will native bees. While they may overlap on some flowers, they are often working totally different species in the same area.


 * A may reclaim would be approriate. Basically it boils down on wheter there is habitat available for nesting and feeding. In W Europe, wild bee populations havbe plummeted in recent decades and this is now being construed as CCD by the averade shite-for-brains reporter. It is actually due to habitat destruction. So even if honeybees were to disappear from, say, Germany, odds are our wild bees wouldn't make a comeback.
 * Butterflies OTOH are the mainstay pollinators for an entirely different set of flowers. Even bumblebees cannot replace "true" bees as pollinators in many cases. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dysmorodrepanis (talk • contribs) 11:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC).

I have done almost all my observations in agricultural areas of Eastern USA, and believe that patterns of pesticide use are a significant factor in this, so it might not be true in some of the wilder areas of the West. Of course I can't put it in the article - it would be dismissed as original research, but the assuption doesn't belong there either. Pollinator 01:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've fixed the text to address this. Funny, but I'd assumed that text was your edit, originally. Dyanega 16:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

You never - very rarely - see a bee on any apple, wild plum, etc anymore in my area. You still get small crops. Wild bees I think died out some time ago around here. Even the professional beekeeper in the area is being wiped out - 50% losses or so. If you send down south for bees you occasionally get bees that must be killer bees - mean as hell and die in the first winter from the cold. 159.105.80.141 12:26, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

DECT Phones
 If you read the "explorative study" in detail, it says that bees are so small, that their resonant frequencies (fs) are much higher than cell phones (375 GHz). http://www.bienenarchiv.de/forschung/2004_lernprozesse/Electromagnetic%20Exposure_Learning%20Processes.doc.pdf Essentially, they don't have body part large enough to receive anything at 850 MHz where US cell phones operate and 1.9 GHz where US PCS phones operate.65.161.188.11 18:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That sort of detail has no bearing on the matter at hand - no one takes this study seriously, and especially not this bizarre stuff about resonant frequencies - the issue HERE is whether there is any reason to think that EMF can be related to CCD. There is no evidence linking the two, so the theory behind the cell phone research is irrelevant at this point. Dyanega 18:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think you really read my comment in detail and responded from the hip. The point is that there can't be evidence linking the two.  I am citing the "explorative study" by Landau University.  The bee would have to have a body part that is large enough to resonate at cellular frequencies.  It's just like your ear can't hear very low frequencies.  So basically, the link between EMF and CCD really has not been established - this is bogus science.Kgrr 18:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

DECT Phones are NOT cell phones, they are cordless phones operating in the unlicensed portion of the 1.9 GHz band. Read both the 2004 and 2006 Landau University "studies". Bue please don't rely on reference #6, they are not really a trusted source.Kgrr 19:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Organisms do not experience resonance nor "receive" signals (this is not the same as hearing); this is itself a fringe science, with no hard science to back it up. As noted in the WP article on the topic (Mobile phone radiation and health): No experimental results to date have indicated that this hypothesis is valid. cite: G J Hyland (2000). "Physics and biology of mobile telephony". The Lancet 356: 1833-1836. - this does not mean that microwave radiation is harmless to honey bees, but it does mean that the Hz values have zero significance. Any damage (or lack thereof) of microwave emissions on biological tissues is not related to the frequencies of the signal. It is only the results of their study that are of interest, but their theory is outside the realm of science. Dyanega 20:54, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not at all saying the bees are able to demodulate cordless phone signals.


 * But I will stand by the fact that damage to biological organisms very much has something to do with frequency. I'm sure you will acknowledge that humans are damaged by cosmic rays, x-rays, and ultra-violet (UV).  All of these are very high in frequency and are known to cause cancer due to ionization.  Below the visual spectrum, EMF causes heating instead of ionization.  There are plenty of papers that back this.


 * Certainly, you've heard of a microwave oven. It uses 2.45 GHz as its center frequency simply because 2.45Ghz is a good comprimise.  Higher frequencies do not penetrate and lower frequencies do.  How much heating is caused does depend on the frequency and the mode of resonance.  For example, water has several frequencies where it resonates and absorbs more energy than other frequencies.  The major absorption peaks are at 22.2, 183.3, and 323.8 GHz.


 * But I do have to say the article sounds like bogus science. Who really operates their cordless phone inside of a bee hive? Not me.  Kgrr 21:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Look at the WP entry for microwave oven, then: Microwave heating is sometimes explained as a rotational resonance of water molecules, but this is incorrect: such resonance only occurs in water vapour at much higher frequencies, at about 20 gigahertz. Moreover, large industrial/commercial microwave ovens operating at 915 MHz also heat water and food perfectly well. That means that the phenomenon in question cannot involve resonance - and, again, resonance is a property of a substance (water, in this case), not of an organism (the size difference between a human and a honey bee has nothing to do with what frequency of radiation will harm them). I didn't mean that frequency is completely unimportant in all contexts, just in THIS context, given the narrow range of frequencies involved; I don't see any reason to think that the range of signal frequencies in question (between 0.8 and 5 GHz) will make any difference, and if you can find citations showing that this limited range of frequencies varies in its effect on biological systems, that would be interesting. Dyanega 23:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

They were looking for non-heating effects of RF

 * Let me first of all state that they were hoping to find Non-Heating effects of RF. I  may have not made myself clear here.  It seems odd to me that they are using a DECT base station instead of a carefully  calibrated RF signal generator.  It's as if they are working the problem with a culprit in mind and then trying to find evidence to back their hypothesis.  With a signal generator, they would have been able to observe the effects of RF on their bees at varying frequencies.  The RF generator can be modulated by another source to pulse the signal.  Non-thermal effects are manifested as changes in cellular metabolism caused by both resonance absorption and induced EMFs and, when neural structures are involved, are often accompanied by a specific behavioural response.  I did not see them check for changes in metabolism or changes in behavior.  I would have expected methods for measuring field strength in mW/cm2.  Also, I would have expected careful measurements of temperature to ensure that their setup was not heating the beehive.  Junk science?

Heating occurs throughout RF spectrum, some better than others

 * You are correct - you can heat at much lower frequencies too. 13 and 27 MHz are not uncommon frequencies for large commercial RF heaters. Frequencies for microwave ovens are based on the frequencies assigned by the FCC (47 CFR part 18) and not what is the most efficient frequency for heating.  RF transmitters are terribly inefficient at higher frequencies.  So it's a trade-off between the efficiency of the RF transmitter and the ability to vibrate water molecules.  At lower frequencies, the resonance involved is the dipole moment between the H-O-H.  At higher frequencies, it's the atom itself that vibrates.  There is a graph I've seen that plots frequency versus absorption.  (I can't find it right now) It's a smooth curve with a couple of peaks increasing as frequency increases rather than being flat with a couple of peaks. But, yes, the heating of biological systems is most definitely a property of water and other molecules.  During RF heating, heat is generated due to molecular friction resulting from the applied alternating electric field oscillating molecules and ions.  All molecules vibrate with RF energy applied.  I.e. RF energy will "cook" proteins as well, not just boil water.

Path loss is more for PCS than Cellular

 * It takes 4 times the energy (6dB) to get from point A to point B on 1.9 GHz as it does on 850 MHz. See Friis transmission equation ((aka Friis free space equation))  This assumes an isotropic antenna on both ends.  Another way of stating this: given two transmitters with the same power output - one at frequency F and the other at 2F, the received signal strength will be x dB and x-6 dB.  A higher frequency allows the construction of antennas that have more gain at a higher frequency with the same size.  But cellphone antennas are nearly omnidirectional anyway.  So why are these guys looking at cell phones and PCS phones that are operating in the milliwatts when there are FM and UHF transmitters that have effective radiated power in the hundreds of thousands if not millions of watts?  I would have expected that higher field strengths would have caused more results.

Kgrr 01:58, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Flaws in Harts, Kuhn, Stever (2006) experiment

 * The Harts, Kuhn, Stever (2006) experiment is flawed in several ways. It's not a double-blind, randomized study and the controls are not identical to the test unit.  I understand it's a preliminary investigation and not a complete study.  But even a good science fair project does some things to remove as much bias as possible from its experiment.  I'm sorry this is JUNK SCIENCE.
 * The researchers know which hives are control and which hives have the DECT cordless base unit in it. And, the bees should not be able to detect whether their hive is control or one with a DECT base in it.  The problem with this is that the researchers may inadvertently record data wanting a certain result.
 * Note that the eight control hives had no DECT base unit in them. The bees may not have liked the smell of the DECT base unit or its additional warmth.  Perhaps if the hive is warmer, maybe the bees insctinctively know not to collect as much pollen/honey.
 * In a well designed experiment, both the control and the active bee hives would have antennas mounted in them. The RF source would have been located in a separate enclosure, far away from the bee hive so that it's heat did not change conditions in the hive and connected to the antenna via low-loss transmission line.
 * The experiment was not re-run so that the bees used as controls in one experiment were then exposed to RF in a subsequent experiment and vise-versa. The bees that got the DECT base station installed into their hive may have been contaminated in one way or another.  The bee hives that contained the DECT base units may have been made sick due to the installation of the base units.  Perhaps the test hives were at one end of the row of hives and the controls were at the other end.  The test hives could have gotten more or less sun exposure than the control hives.  The experiment should have removed that variable completely by randomizing which hives were test and which were controls.
 * The hives could also have been run as self-controls. I.e. the behavior of the hive should have been recorded before and after the experiment with a control period.  This would have ensured that the RF was the only variable applied.
 * The article does not explain the technical flaws they encountered in detail nor do they adequately explain the gaps in the weather data.
 * They claimed they were looking for "Non-thermal effects of RF" nut did not adequately record temperatures inside of the control and the test hives. They needed to adequately prove that their experiment was not heating the test hive.   I also did not see the data on how much the bees had actually eaten when they were fed.  They should have taken a much closer look at metabolic changes such as the level of activity in the hive.
 * The article was not peer reviewed to uncover the above flaws in the experiment. ==> Junk Science

Kgrr 11:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Jochen Kuhn und Hermann Stever paper (German)
Kuhn Stever 2003 71.37.23.175 02:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This German Journal article "Elektromagnetische Exposition als Einflussfaktor für Lernprozesse - ein Einwirkungsmodell der Bildungsinformatik mit Bienen als Bioindikatorenis" is not related to CCD, but Cognitive Science in bees. Kgrr 14:36, 23 April 2007 (UTC) ✅

Any link to Wasps (European Bee Wolves)?
Philanthus triangulum Kgrr 23:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * No one has proposed any connection of bee wolves to CCD; beewolves have been around for millenia, as have their prey. Further, P. triangulum is completely absent from the New World, where CCD is far more widely reported. The same basic thing is true of Vespa mandarinia, a honey bee predator widely known in Asia - just because there are predators in the world, somewhere, is no reason to put them on the list of "possible suspects". Dyanega 17:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Congressional Report
Renée Johnson "Recent Honey Bee Colony Decline" Congressional Research Service March 26, 2007 Kgrr 00:08, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Kgrr 14:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Washington Post
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/11/AR2007021100650.html By GENARO C. ARMAS "Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees" Washington Post February 11, 2007]Kgrr 00:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC) ✅

Any remedies?
Does anyone know if efforts are being taken to address this problem?Michaeljwsiegel 23:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * MAAREC offers the following course of action: CCD Recommendations. Perhaps other recommendations can be added when they are found. Kgrr 15:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC) ✅