PhotoDude.com

The interesting thing from that article is how cultural bogeymen affect judgment.

Situation: Bees be dying all over the place.

Serious US response: I wonder if there’s some sort of disease or mite that’s causing this. This calls for further research.

European response: ZOMG GM foodz!

Silly US response: OMFGBBQ!1 teh cell phonez!

It seems that whenever some oddity crops-up, everyone has to ascribe it to their favorite doom scenario instead of gathering facts and coming to reasonable conclusions. I’d like to see the study cited in the article, because findings and conclusions in studies tend to be different from how they’re portrayed in the news item.

I had no idea that bees used cell phones. I suppose that could be it … because I do have a cell phone grudge. Those that have a grudge against genetically modified plants have got their bug-a-boo, too.

But I can’t help but look at the story and think … “so, for a decade or more, you’ve been crating up millions of bees, stuffing them inside shipping containers on the back of an 18 wheeler, carting them thousands of miles across the country … and when you release them and they die or don’t come back, you wonder if there’s something unnatural occurring here?

The truth seems to be nobody knows exactly what is happening here. So I blame it on gasoline powered dislocation.

Oh, trust me, somebody will come out and say something about teh cell phonez! affecting our little bumblefriends.

Personally, I blame Bush & Cheney.

If ever something goes wrong point the finger at Bush… So sick of this lazy justification for current events in the world!

Radiation from cell phones interacts with the internal radar of bees, in result, affecting there ability to find their way back to the hive.

“Radiation from cell phones interacts with the internal radar of bees”

OK, I can buy into that. But where I have the problem is the fact that cell phones have been around nearly two decades. Their usage reached “critical mass” some time ago, not recently.

So why suddenly ... this year ... have bee’s become affected by cell phones? I know you don’t know the answer, I’m just saying the cause and effect seem disjointed.

Maybe it’s the EVDO?

Really, I have no idea. But that would be the major change in cell transmission recently.

Hmm, recent major changes … it’s the Democratically controlled Congress! Who knew bees were Republican?

In addition, I would note there is now some doubt about authenticity of the quote by Einstein. Or, at least, there’s been trouble tracking down the original statement.

But there’s no doubt … something weird is up with the bees.

Reid wrote: “But there’s no doubt … something weird is up with the bees.”

Unfortunately, I don’t have the solution, but for a narrative that feels pretty damned accurate on what happens when bees go away, birds go away, or whatever goes away, check out Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”.

You know I find it funny when they have facts that cell phone’s electrical trnasmissions are affecting the bees, people can’t accept that their “device” that’s so handy is actually doing that, so they have to blame someone for it. I actually hope all the bees die, then the human race will die. Obviously the human race needs to die, we’re killing the earth, we’re destroying it specie by specie. Good luck giving your cell phones up, hope you change your mind, but i doubt you will :)

I would like to note for the record that this page has become a ridiculously popular return for those seeking the Einstein quote about bees. A quote which is now a bit uncertain, as it can only be found in a German text of uncertain origins.

Anyway, because of this, I expect people will stop by to tell us how it’s not cell phones (“yes it is, you just can’t handle the truth!”), it’s the melamine in Chinese wheat gluten, or it’s the tiny tin foil hats the bees have begun wearing to avoid of human mind-control tricks.

And Aaron, humans will never “kill the earth.” It existed long before we came along, it witnessed the die-off of thousands of species that pre-date humans, and has been a mostly lifeless blob more than once. If humans turn it into a lifeless blob again, it will just be the blink of an eye to Mother Earth. As our total existence has been to her so far.

Thanks, Reid. That’s really comforting.

Snopes

What I find particularly amazing is that the bees are apparently affected only by those specific frequencies scattered throughout the 800MHz-3GHz range emitted by teh cell phonez, yet are immune not only to the frequencies immediately surrounding them, but to the entire radio spectrum itself!

The solution is simple: Give those frequencies back to walkie-talkies and television broadcasters and tell the universe to stop sending all that electromagnetic radiation our way.

They study used fancy cordless phones, not cell phones.

Some reporter got the story wrong, and now everyone is afraid for their cell phones. No one studied cell phones, nor do they have an explanation for the behavior that they observed beyond that it might have something to do with electro magnetic fields.

If you put “Colony colapse” in google scholar, you can find the whole scientific article.

What shocks me about this quote, whether it is a hoax or not, is the fact that the Mayan race predicted the end of mankind and the world as we know it would occure in 2012.. Given that this is 2007, if this quote is factual information, that would put us 4 years away from extinction, just as the Mayans predicted.

If its true then Einstein’s quote would be more of a precursor of Armageddon than a scientific observation.

I know the Mayan prediction that Snake talks about. I have pondered it and pondered it and speculated about the bees and fours and the precursor of Armageddon. However, I find it interesting that the Mayan’s didn’t predict their extinction…and that doom’s day has seemed to come and go several times.

I am concerned about the honeybees as they are the only bees to pollunate certain plants. It would mean that the end of certain foods, etc. However, what the world needs to do is to rethink what they eat and how they live. We are being given a warning signal…it is up to us to decide what we do next.

These are the studies.