[Scpg] [Fwd: Introductory Beekeeping Course]

Fri Mar 9 17:06:26 PST 2007

For those interested in beekeeping, the following article may be of interest:

>http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/03/06/millions_of_bees_die_are_elec...
>
>
>If link is not good, here is Text:
>March 06, 2007
>
>
>     Millions of Bees Die - Are Electromagnetic Signals To
>Blame?
>     Categories
>     Environment
>     Health
>
>     Bees in the US are dying of some unknown cause -
>millions of them are leaving their hives and do not come
>back. What is happening? The problem has got a name - colony
>collapse disorder - but no apparent cause.
>
>
>     beehive.jpg
>
>     Bee hive - Image credit: EnviroZine
>
>     Some years back, France and other European countries had
>a similar, if less severe die-off of honey bees. At the time
>Gaucho, a poisonous seed treatment chemical produced by
>Bayer, was blamed, but the situation seems to have
>stabilized since then.
>
>     The situation in the US seems even more severe than what
>happened in Europe, and certainly the onset is more sudden.
>According to The Independent, millions of honey bees are
>abandoning their hives and flying off to die, leaving
>beekeepers facing ruin and US agriculture under threat.
>
>         "Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the
>Pacific, honey bee colonies have started to die off,
>abruptly and decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning
>their hives and flying off to die (they cannot survive as a
>colony without the queen, who is always left behind).
>
>         Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable
>apiaries, or bee farms, which are used for large-scale
>pollination of fruit and vegetable crops, are facing
>commercial ruin - and there is a growing threat that
>America's agriculture may be struck a mortal blow by the
>loss of the pollinators. Yet scientists investigating the
>problem have no idea what is causing it."
>
>     On my weekly news grabs, I linked some articles on the
>mysterious die-off of honey bees, and a reader commented,
>suggesting that emissions of GWEN, the Ground Wave Emergency
>Network, might be to blame. Here is what he had to say:
>
>         After reading several articles on the disappearance
>of the honeybee, the thought occurred that this appears to
>be happening only in the US. A Google search turned up
>nothing on this phenomenon in any other country, including
>Canada and Mexico.
>
>         Why only the US? Also, why are nonsensical excuses
>being offered up by the pseudo-scientific community for the
>demise of the bee?
>
>         Researchers have dubbed the syndrome the "colony
>collapse disorder." They say the bees presumably are dying
>in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or disoriented and
>eventually dying from exposure to the cold. Or, it could
>just be that the bees are stressed out. Give me a break!
>
>         Tired bees? Dying from weather exposure? Stressed
>out bees? Disoriented?
>
>         Just imagine a tired bee for a moment. When's the
>last time you saw a tired bee?
>
>         Dying from weather exposure? Weather cold enough to
>kill bees in their hives would also decimate other insect
>populations. No report on that, huh?
>
>         Stressed out bees? What, all of a sudden bees get
>stressed out? What about bees in other countries? They
>don't seem to be having a problem at all.
>
>         Disoriented bees? Ah, well this is a possibility.
>But what would make them disoriented? Perhaps it is the 250
>HZ signals being pumped out of GWEN stations all over
>America. This signal makes people angry, so that they
>support the administrations idea of going after Iran and
>violence in general. It works great for mass manipulation of
>opinion. Unfortunately, the same signal will induce a
>misdirection of up to 10 degrees in the navigation ability
>of the honeybee. They go away from the hive and never come
>back because they can no longer find it. That's why it's
>only happening in the US.
>
>         Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this is that US
>media has never ventured to question why it is only
>happening here. Somebody must have told them to clam up on
>this issue or the current crop of US reporters got their
>degrees in journalism out of a Cracker Jack box.
>
>     Now what the hell are GWEN stations, you might want to
>ask, and what could they have to do with the catastrophic
>die-off of honey bees...
>
>     - - -
>
>     GWEN, Microwave Arrays and Mobile Phone Radiation
>
>
>     GWEN, the Ground Wave Emergency Network, is a military
>communications network, consisting of some 300 transmitters
>dotting the whole of the continental United States. Each
>tower is 300-500 feet high. The stations are from 200 to 250
>miles apart, so that a signal can go from coast to coast
>from one station to another. The official purpose is "to
>ensure adequate communication between command authorities
>and land-based strategic nuclear forces in the event of a
>nuclear attack on the United States mainland." But there are
>others who say, a different, hidden use of the system may be
>"electromagnetic mind-altering technology" using ELF or
>Extremely Low Frequency waves.
>
>     According to a 1982 Air Force review of biotechnology,
>ELF has a number of potential military uses, including
>"dealing with terrorist groups, crowd control, controlling
>breaches of security at military installations, and
>antipersonnel techniques in tactical warfare." The same
>report states:
>
>         "Electromagnetic systems would be used to produce
>mild to severe physiological disruption or perceptual
>distortion or disorientation. They are silent, and
>counter-measures to them may be difficult to develop."
>
>     Robert O. Becker, M.D., in his book "Crosscurrents: The
>Perils of Electropollution" said:
>
>         "GWEN is a superb system, in combination with
>cyclotron resonance, for producing behavioral alterations in
>the civilian population. The average strength of the steady
>geomagnetic field varies from place to place across the
>United States. Therefore, if one wished to resonate a
>specific ion in living things in a specific locality, one
>would require a specific frequency for that location. The
>spacing of GWEN transmitters 200 miles apart across the
>United States would allow such specific frequencies to be
>'tailored' to the geomagnetic-field strength in each GWEN
>area."
>
>     Another candidate for a source of disturbing radiation
>is the Microwave Vertical Array, a large number of microwave
>towers erected throughout the US, which may have uses other
>than simple communication.
>
>     The bees seem to be playing the role that canary birds
>had in the mines, warning us of impending desaster. Are
>these insects, by their unprecedented behavior of flying off
>without returning to their hives, showing that something
>insidious is going on? Whether this is a signal of covert
>mind control or simply radiation from mobile phone
>applications, for sure we should be paying attention.
>
>     According to a message from Paul Doyon, electromagnetic
>waves may well have the capacity of disorienting not only
>bees but a number of flying creatures. Here is a specific
>instance involving bees he quotes:
>
>         At Cornell Univ. honeybees in a hive relocated into
>a new building became disoriented. After extensive research
>ruled out other causes, someone noticed the hive was next to
>the building's electric transformer. The bees were confused
>by 60 hz magnetism strong enough to interfere with homing
>and communication to gather nectar and pollen.
>(http://www.ratical.org/ratville/RofD4.html)
>
>     In Germany, a study of honeybees irradiated with DECT
>mobile phone base station radiation found that only few of
>the irradiated bees returned to the hive, and that they
>required more time to return than the non irradiated bees.
>Also, the weight of the honeycombs of the irradiated bees
>was found to be smaller than those in the hives of non
>irradiated bees. (Stever H, Kuhn J, Otten C, Wunder B, Harst
>W. Verhaltensaenderung unter elektromagnetischer Exposition.
>Pilotstudie. Institut fuer Mathematik. Arbeitsgruppe
>Bildungsinformatik. Universitaet Koblenz-Landau; 2005.
>http://agbi.uni-landau.de/materialien.htm)
>
>     See also
>
>     http://www.mikrowellensmog.info/bienen.html Bees die
>from
>microwave irradiation - German site of Dr. Ferdinand
>Ruzicka, University professor.
>
>     and
>
>     http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/ouruhia/ Ouruhia
>Web, a New Zealand electromagnetic waves website.
>
>     and
>
>     Firstenberg, A. 1997: Microwaving Our Planet: The
>Environmental Impact of the Wireless Revolution. Cellular
>Phone Taskforce. Brooklyn, NY 11210.
>
>     See also Alfonso Balmori on EMFacts.
>
>     Other indications put together by Doyon about the
>effects suffered not only by bees but also birds and farm
>animals from the effects of cell phone radiation:
>
>     The effects of EMR are being felt by wildlife and the
>environment as a whole, Birds, bees, worms, trees are all
>being affected. We need to fight for not only the future of
>mankind but for the future of the whole environment.
>
>     Vienna physicians are displaying information posters in
>doctor's surgeries. They state radiation from mobile phones
>is far from being harmless as they have been told by the
>cell phone companies. They have therefore, in order to act
>responsibly, the Chamber of Doctors in Vienna, Austria, has
>decided to inform people about potential medical risks.
>
>
>http://www.mast-victims.org/index.php?content=journal&action=view&type=journa...
>
>     His findings, and subsequent related work by Dr Cyril
>Smith (Smith and Baker, 1982), seem relevant also to the
>earlier and more generally accepted studies on bees and
>homing pigeons, both of which are known to have receptors
>which are able to sense the Earth's magnetic field and its
>variations, which they use to help direct their survival
>behavior. My own extraordinary first experience of complete
>disorientation below the lines may also be relevant; I had
>never experienced this before, though I have done so since,
>most notably after I had held up a fluorescent tube for over
>an hour, to be photographed under the lines; the next day,
>after a distressingly sleepless night, I found what looked
>like a burn on that shoulder.
>
>
>http://www.bewisepolarize.com/man-made%20emf%20sources.htm
>
>     Our cheap transistor radios can pick up and separate out
>hundreds of radio signals at levels of a few hundreds of
>microvolts/metre. More sophisticated communications
>receivers can work down to levels of about 10
>microvolts/metre. Radio-astronomers work on informational
>signals from stars at less than 1 microvolt/metre - this is
>a power level of about 0.000 000 000 001 microwatt/cm2 (1
>attowatt/cm2 !!). We can now detect and create pictures from
>signals from spacecraft at our outer planets using transmit
>powers similar to those use by mobile phones of a few watts!
>
>     Honeybees have been shown to be sensitive to magnetic
>flux differences of 1 nanotesla (10 microGauss)
>[4][Theoretically humans could also be sensitive down to
>less than this level (pineal thermal noise c. 0.24 nanotesla
>- Smith, 1985). Various sea creatures can detect voltage
>gradients of a few 10's of microvolts/metre.
>
>     Biological stochastic resonance from regular pulsing
>EMFs can effectively amplify coherent signals (like power
>EMFs) by vast amounts.
>
>     What arrogant nonsense to suggest that living systems
>need to be "cooked" before they realize they are being
>bombarded by signals and that microwaves of 100 volts/metre
>are harmless to us.
>
>     http://members.aol.com/gotemf/emf/animals.htm
>
>     Honey bees navigate by observing changes as small as
>0.6% in the Earth's magnetic field (2.5 mG out of 400 mG).
>Other studies have shown that other animals, such as sea
>turtles and homing pigeons, can navigate using the Earth's
>magnetic field as a guide. In order to navigate to
>precision, it is necessary to have many magnetosomes with a
>permanent dipole moment which are able to maintain their
>direction in the Earth's magnetic field while being buffeted
>by Brownian thermal fluctuations.
>
>     V.3. Animals: Honey bees follow B fields
>(Walker/Bitterman, J. Comp. Physiol. 157, 67-73, 1995, and
>Science 265, 95, 1994) down to a few mG DC accuracy and sea
>turtles turn when B varies at earth's locations (Science
>264, 661 (1994).
>
>     42. "Honeybees Can Be Trained to Respond to Very Small
>Changes in Geomagnetic Field Intensity," M.M. Walker and
>M.E. Bitterman, J. Exp. Biology 145, 489-494 (1989). (A)

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