As we were recently talking about honeybees, the epidemic known as colony collapse, and the need for more local beekeepers, I thought that you might be interested in this recent Indian study showing that cell phones could play a part in hive collapse. Here’s a clip from an article on the study:
…when a mobile phone was kept near a beehive it resulted in collapse of the colony in five to ten days, with the worker bees failing to return home, leaving the hives with just queens, eggs and hive-bound immature bees…
I haven’t read the study, and the article, from an Indian news agency, isn’t terribly informative, but, still, I think it’s worth considering along with all the other possible reasons being suggested for Colony Collapse Disorder. Regardless of the cause, though, there’s hope on the horizon.
And it doesn’t involve the possibility of getting stung.
I just happened across the following comment left by a reader of Boing Boing, in the wake of an article on tiny, swarming robots:
I was actually just talking with someone who was working with a research team at Harvard looking to make some kind of prototype robotic “bee.”
My first assumption was that he meant a little, flying robot that would be used for spying or something like that.
It turned out that it was more literal than that: they want swarms of little, flying robots that could actually pollinate flowers if real bees ever become endangered or extinct…
Now, if there was just a way to have them also eat belly fat and excrete gasoline.
