Photo: Friends of Honeybees
I hate cell phones and I’m frequently confused and get lost easily. The only logical conclusion is that I must be part honeybee.
A new Swiss study has concluded that cell phones interfere with “worker piping,” a type of honeybee communication signal, and this interruption causes the bees to become confused and die—known as Colony Collapse Disorder. In 2009, we lost almost 29 percent of the bee colonies in the US. 36% died off in 2008. 32% gone in 2007. 2010 saw the die off continue, and this year we seem tragically on-track to lose record numbers. It’s not just losing bees, we are talking about losing agriculture. Our food sources from fruit and vegetable sources must be pollinated…by the bees that are being killed off. For the past few years it has been a crisis, and researchers posited theories about the cause being new pesticides, or some disease plague among the bees, or fungus…and now we find the weapon may be in our hand.
Discovery has a whole web page dedicated to Bees on the Brink where you can learn more. Some actions you can take include planting flowering gardens, and cutting back on any pesticide use you directly initiate or increase from your produce purchases (meaning hit the Farmer’s Market when you can).
The United Nations has initiated an International Alert calling for new efforts to protect honeybees…populations have declined 85% in some international regions.
Friends of Honeybees can help keep you informed, and also has a very cool expression of bee support in the form of jewelry. An amulet with a silver-topped vial holds a drop of honey–representative of the one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey that is a bee’s LIFE’S WORK! (yes–a fraction of a teaspoon is the entire production from the life of a single bee…Wow!). Honey seems an awful lot more precious to me now. FoH is calling it “The New Amber.”
Plant some flowers, eat organic…it works for us, and works for the bees…maybe even cutting back on cellphone usage…now THAT works for me. Can you hear me now?
Change by Doing 