Cell phones vs. Bees

There has been articles circulating around in the news regarding cell phone radiation and their effects on bees. The study which I am talking about is from Panjab University, India. It claims to have found a co-relation with cell phone use and colony health.


Here is a link to the study:


PanjabUniversityBeeStudyPDF


I read through this study and I cannot stop laughing. They used what appears to be some fairly sophisticated equipment to measure 'Flight Activity', 'Returning Ability' and 'Pollen Foraging Ability' along with a power density monitor to measure the Electro Magnetic Radiation. They also recorded how productive the queens were and did other quantitative analysis. It turns out that the hive that was exposed to 15min twice a day during peak hours and only twice a week had its colony collapse. Oh no!


The key part of this academic study and that part that makes me laugh is the fact that there was only one hive exposed to cell phone radiation and another hive which had phones turned off in them. How did these people decide that a single test hive was sufficient to publish results? It is ridiculous that someone would publish a study that only tested two hives. All beekeepers and I would assume legitimate scientists know that in order to make any type of conclusions, you need test and retest and a variety of test subjects. Something much more reasonable would have been 10 beehives with active cellphones; 10 with inactive cellphones and 10 regular hives with no changes. That would have been a lot more convincing to me.


I do believe that Electro Magnetic Radiation does have an effect on many living animals. There has been some legitimate studies which this have proven that bees do not do as well when they are near high voltage lines and so on.

Just another reason not to keep a cell phone in your pocket.