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Food: Farming: Bee
Bee fence   (+7, -2)  [vote for, against]
Cel mate.

Cel phone signals are causing bees to become disoriented and unable to find their way home. [Link]

Could we not use this phenomenon to create a barrier, at the northern most Latitude to which the Africanized (killer) bees have managed to find their way, which allows them to cross but not find their way home from.
This would allow crews to eradicate colonies on this side of the barrier and move it southward by increments, gradually driving them into a corner to be finished off once and for all.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 03 2007

Have you heard the buzz? http://news.indepen.../article2449968.ece
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 03 2007]

Experts may have found what's bugging the bees http://www.latimes....2135129,print.story
A fungus that hit hives in Europe and Asia may be partly to blame for wiping out colonies across the U.S. [xaviergisz, May 03 2007]

Is K-Fed behind mysterious bee disappearances? http://www.azcentra...ng-bees0502-ON.html
A lot of silly possibilities. [baconbrain, May 03 2007]

sparrows? http://www.safewire...-lost-sparrows.aspx
[po, May 03 2007]

Colony collapse disorder http://en.wikipedia...igratory_beekeeping
Migratory beekeeping may contribute to CCD through pathogen spread [spidermother, Nov 11 2010]

<waggles rear end>
-- po, May 03 2007


<follows [po] in straight line>
-- xandram, May 03 2007


[That first link is patently false: it reports the bee problem as starting in the States, spreading to Europe, and now reaching Britain. But as everyone knows, mobile phones gained much wider spread usage first in Europe and Britain, and only in recent years have rates fallen to the point where they have become universal in the States - the reverse trend to the bee plague. So, D- for lack of critical thinking.]
-- DrCurry, May 03 2007


Cut-and-paste from that K-Fed link: "A small German scientific study looking at a specific type of cordless phones and homing systems of bees exploded over the Internet and late night television shows. It morphed into erroneous reports blaming cell phones for the honeybee die-off, which scientists are calling Colony Collapse Disorder.

"The scientist who wrote the paper, Stefan Kimmel, e-mailed the Associated Press to say that there is "no link between our tiny little study and the CCD-phenomenon ... anything else said or written is a lie." And U.S. Department of Agriculture top bee researcher Jeff Pettis laughs at the idea, because whenever he goes out to investigate dead bees, he cannot get a signal on his cell phone because the hives are in such remote areas."

The idea is clever, though.
-- baconbrain, May 03 2007


The little dog that habitually crapped in my garden, much to the joy of my one and a half year old daughter, is now no more due to a local nest of hornets/ wasps/ whatever. His owner is critically ill, and another dog dead.

Every dog has his day, I suppose.
-- Ling, May 03 2007


(-) Please, not *this* canard again. Thanks for debunking the story in detail, baconbrain!
-- jutta, May 03 2007


<researches further and is properly chastised>

I must have missed the previous canards.
(had to look that up by the way)
With your permission and in the interests of helping to debunk, what seems to be becoming, a popular urban myth, I'll leave this posted.

This way, if it does happen to be proven that cel phone radiation effects bees, then mothers will point me out to their children and say, "See kids, that's 2fries. That's the man that helped save us all from the killer bees", as I am carried on the shoulders of the populace to cash my armloads of royalty cheques and life will be sweet as honey.
<sigh>
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 03 2007


//The little dog that habitually crapped in my garden, much to the joy of my one and a half year old daughter, is now no more due to a local nest of hornets/ wasps/ whatever.//
[Ling] So, can you recommend your local franchise of Pest'R'Us ?
If they reward referrals, I'll gladly give you my endorsement.

PS Are these eponymous ducks more or less dangerous than the bees?
-- coprocephalous, May 03 2007


Apiarently, the best current theory is that bees are getting disoriented because of salt-crystals. Sea-spray normally throws minute salt crystals into the air, which are carried up into the mid-atmosphere (and, incidentally, nucleate rainclouds). The salt crystals influence the polarisation of sunlight, to which bees are sensitive (more so than to the direction of the sun itself). They use polarization to help navigate by. Hence, when changing weather patterns alter the distribution of atmospheric salt microcystals, the bees are buggered.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 03 2007


So Maxwell how does this explain the apparent datum that africanized bees and bees kept by organic beekeepers are less affected by CCD.
-- Galbinus_Caeli, May 04 2007


Charge Coupled Devices? Perhaps those beekeepers have fewer digital cameras.
-- normzone, May 04 2007


//So Maxwell how does this explain the apparent datum// Different bee species and subspecies, allegedly, have different degrees of dependence on different navigational cues. African bees, like African birds, rely less on solar polarisation for navigation, because solar polarization is less informative at the latitudes where they evolved.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 04 2007


<Monty Python and the Holy Grail>
But then again, European Bees are non-migratory
</MPATHG>
-- gnomethang, May 05 2007


//European Bees are non-migratory// Oddly, that is true. Migratory, w.r.t. bees, refers to the practice of moving hives to take advantage of food sources or to provide a pollination service. This is much more common in the USA than in Europe. There is a theory that the resulting spread of pathogens contributes to the higher rates of colony collapse disorder in the USA (link). I hope you don't mind being called 'Oddly'.

My beehives are along the side of my house, where I hope they will discourage people from wandering into the back yard. I thought this was that kind of bee fence. (An over-zeolous housemate removed the side fence while I wasn't looking. He was just trying to be helpful.)
-- spidermother, Nov 11 2010


Salt crystals nucleate rainclouds? What could be more dangerous than a raincloud raining nucleuses down onto us when it rains! I bet umbrellas are not proof against all forms of deadly radiation! We must ban salt crystals! All of those expensive brands have to go, from now on only free-running powdered table salt will be permitted.
-- pocmloc, Nov 11 2010



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