Mobile phone waves harmful to honeybees?

[Nomad]

Mobile phone waves harmful to honeybees?

A plunge in beehive population has been reported from different parts of Kerala [A state in South Western India] and if measures are not taken to check mushrooming of mobile towers bees could be wiped out from Kerala within a decade, environmentalist and zoologist Dr Sainudeen Pattazhy warns

Electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phones have become the latest threat to Kerala’s honeybees. A recent study points to the fact that the growing number of mobile towers put up to improve connectivity has resulted in a drastic drop in bee populations all over the state.

This not only poses a threat to the livelihoods of over 100,000 people engaged in apiculture across Kerala, it also constitutes a major environmental disaster. After all, honeybees are responsible for pollinating over 100 species of commonly eaten fruit and vegetables; without bees the entire food system could be in serious trouble.

Experiments conducted by Dr Sainuddin Pattazhy, who teaches at S N College in Punalur, in Kollam district, show that electromagnetic radiation from mobile towers and cell phones cripples the “navigational skills” of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies.

In one of his experiments, Dr Pattazhy found that when a mobile phone was put near a beehive it caused the entire colony to collapse in just five to 10 days. Worker bees failed to return to the hive, leaving it with just the queen, eggs and hive-bound immature bees. The missing bees were never found.

Beekeepers across the state said several hives have been abruptly abandoned. Kerala has close to 6 lakh beehives, with 1-1.25 lakh people engaged in apiculture, mostly as an allied activity. A sharp decline has been noted in commercial beehives all over the state. The official explanation is that bees are susceptible to diseases and fall prey to attacks by wasps, ants, and wax moths.

Parackal Chacko, a beekeeper from Wayanad, says they believed the disappearance of beehives in the area, in the past few years, was due to climatic changes and attacks by hostile insects and pests. “The angle that mobile phone towers could be a threat should be seriously probed,” he says.

Dr Pattazhy warns: “Considering the recent plunge in beehive populations reported from different parts of Kerala, the trend could wipe out bees from Kerala within a decade.” Earlier, a study conducted in different parts of Kollam district in Kerala by a team of environmentalists found that radiation from mobile phone towers also threatened home sparrows that live in colonies close to human habitats, in urban areas.

According to Dr Pattazhy, insects and smaller animals are susceptible to the microwaves emitted by mobile towers and phones. He stresses that the phenomenon requires further study.

Across the world, attention has been focused on supporting bees and other pollinators since the worrying discovery a few years ago of ‘colony collapse disorder (CCD)’, a mysterious ailment that causes entire colonies of honeybees to just disappear.

While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term ‘colony collapse disorder’ was first applied to a drastic increase in the number of disappearances of western honeybee colonies in North America, in late-2006.

European beekeepers observed a similar phenomenon in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain; reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany.

Although the cause or causes of the syndrome are not yet fully understood, cell phone radiation and genetically modified crops with pest control characteristics have recently been cited.