You may have seen the sensational stories on the Internet the past 24 hours that it’s finally been confirmed: Cell Phones KILL Bees!
The only problem is… it’s NOT confirmed.
That’s not what the study says. It’s not even what the original article says.
The study
Yes, cell phone radiation harms bees. A Swiss researcher placed cell phones next to hives and recorded what happened. When the phones were active, the bees emitted “piping” sounds – the high-pitched tones that spread the message through the colony that something disturbing is going on.
Piping can be a signal for the colony to swarm… but that didn’t happen here, and the researcher let the phones go as long as 20 hours. He did report that the colony didn’t return to baseline normal state for many hours after the phones were switched off and removed.
Nowhere in the report does it say anything about bees dying. So what happened?
The first story
The original article was accepted for the scientific journal Apidologie last year.
The story was picked up by the British tabloid The Daily Mail yesterday. That paper is known more for its sensationalism than its accuracy, and they don’t disappoint – the second sentence claims “In the first experiment of its kind, a bee expert placed a mobile phone underneath a hive and then carefully monitored the reaction of the workers.”, which is simply not true – there have been other experiments of this type.
But the article actually gets it right on the subject of bee death – it explicitly states (all the way down in paragraph 17)
“The study did not show that mobile phones were deadly for bees”
But the headline writer may not have read that far. And it’s the headline writer’s job to pump things up to make sure that folks read the article. So he went all out.
Headline: “Why a mobile phone ring may make bees buzz off: Insects infuriated by handset signals”
Tagline: “Phone signals confuses bees and cause them to begin flying erratically before suddenly dying”
Photo caption: “Researchers placed mobile phones in bee hives under controlled conditions and monitored the results. They found the phone signals confused the bees who begin to fly erratically before dying suddenly”
How it spread
And that’s when things went bad. The meme left the hive, as it were, and flew off and started pollinating other websites.
Many of us who write for the web get our leads by what we read on other blogs. Going back to original sources takes time and effort, and a lot of us aren’t paid very much. We’ve gotta just grab the stories and run with them.
So, Inhabitat, which credits the Daily Mail with the story:
It’s Official – Cell Phones are Killing Bees
Scientists may have found the cause of the world’s sudden dwindling population of bees – and cell phones are to blame. Research conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland has shown that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also leads to their death. Over 83 experiments have yielded the same results… The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically, and then suddenly die!
Cell Phones Are Killing The Bees: Study
New experiments find that cell phone signals don’t just confuse bees, they off them. What does this mean for our food supply? …phone signals confuse honeybees so much that they become disoriented before finally dropping dead…
and Gizmodo:
Study: Mobile Phones Cause Bees To Swarm To Their Death
…Disoriented by the noise, the colony fled their hive, flew erratically and suddenly died….
and another 54,000 or so websites picked up on the story over the past 24 hours.
Like the Portland Mercury:
Cell phones=death to bees=DOOM
Followed by this exchange in the comments:
it could be anything that’s messing up the bees, including cell phones. - Posted by jami | April 16, 2007 1:18 PM
You mean I might have been blowing the whole thing out of proportion? - Posted by [author] Matt Davis | April 16, 2007 1:39 PM
possibly yes. - Posted by jami | April 16, 2007 3:58 PM
Nooooooooooo. - Posted by [author] Matt Davis | April 16, 2007 4:18 PM
Oh, wait! That’s from FOUR YEARS AGO. I guess this isn’t a new phenomenon, either…
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More on Colony Collapse Disorder:
- UK Bee Failure Both Environmental and Political
- Could Britain Save the World’s Bees?
- White Nose Syndrome Spreads Through US Bat Population
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(Bee Movie image © Dreamworks Animation; via RegHardware)
