Cellular phone uses linked to bee deaths

Cellular phone uses linked to bee deaths
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/204247

Apr 18, 2007 04:30 AM
Dana Flavelle
Business Reporter
Martin Weatherall isn't surprised that a German researcher has linked cellphone radiation to the mysterious disappearance of millions of bees around the globe.

Weatherall, a retired Toronto police officer who was forced out of his Woodstock, Ont., home after high levels of radio waves from nearby hydro-electric polls and cellphone towers made him electro-hypersensitive, is better able than most to understand the German study, which shows that bees refuse to return to their hive when cellphones are placed nearby.

"I can imagine how it would affect the bee," said Weatherall.

The new research on how cellphone use impacts on bees is gaining popularity among those looking to explain a new apiary phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.

The problem is characterized by the sudden widespread disappearance of commercial bees used to pollinate crops, as if they've flown away from the hive and refused to come back, according to U.S. agricultural analysts.

Some 24 U.S. states have reported massive bee losses, far beyond anything considered normal in the winter die-off.

Beekeepers in parts of British Columbia are the latest to report unusually high winter losses, joining those in Ontario's Niagara Region reporting losses up to 90 per cent in some cases. But it's unclear whether these localized incidents are evidence that Canada is suffering from colony collapse disorder.

"I don't know how we can know for sure that we don't have something when we don't know what it is," said Ed Nowek, president of the Canadian Honey Council, the national industry association. "We've got some cases in the Okanagan where people are suspicious there's a link."

Whatever the cause, Nowek says there's good reason to worry.

"For this spring, we could see shortages of spring bees for pollination," Nowek said. That could lead to crops losses, especially for B.C. blueberries, as well as cranberries and canola seeds in the prairie provinces, he said. In Ontario, bees help pollinate cherries and pears. "The loss, over and above the cost to the beekeeper, can be exponential."

Conventional theories about why the bees are disappearing range from stress to poor nutrition.

Weatherall is among those who believe a report out of Landau University in Koblenz, Germany, that links cellphone radiation to bee behaviour.

Weatherall said that he, too, was forced out of his new home when hydro-electric lines made him hypersensitive to electricity. He said his symptoms included constant ringing in his ears, headaches and nausea and eventually led to a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

"Some people are virtually suicidal they're so upset with the way they feel all the time," said Weatherall.

Despite the new German research, bee researchers remain skeptical of the impact of radio waves on bees. They claim it is just one of several theories that include global warming and genetically modified crops.

"All of these are speculation. They deserve to be investigated. They are good hypotheses, some of them. Others are out of reality, in my opinion," said Ernesto Guzman, associate professor with the University of Guelph's department of environmental biology.

Guzman, a specialist in bee research, says he believes stress is the major factor in the situation south of the border while in Canada a combination of poor weather on fall food supply levels and an influx of mites is the likely cause.

Beekeeping practices in the U.S. have diverged from those in Canada in the last 10 to 15 years as competition from cheap honey in China forced more American beekeepers to rent out their bees for crop pollination, Guzman said.

Many beekeepers move their colonies frequently to new fields, where too many bees compete for too little food. They die in overheated trucks, or get left behind.