Study Shows Bee-pocalypse Caused by Cell Phones

Who doesn’t love to eat? Ok, you–out of the gene pool. The rest of us, who like living, ought to be concerned by the decimation of bee populations everywhere, which you are causing. Or, rather, your cell phone is causing.

According to a new study from the Swiss Federal Insititute of Technology, cell phone signals may confuse honeybees, causing them to become disoriented before ultimately dying. That’s a concern because 70 out of 100 of the world’s food crops are pollinated by honeybees. And the UN reports that the bee population is dropping all over the world.

Daniel Favre, author of the paper titled “Mobile Phone-Induced Honeybee Worker Piping,” recorded honeybee reactions to phones in off, standby, and active modes in 83 experiments. He found that the noise the bees make increases 10 times when a call is in progress. That noise, referred to as “worker piping”, is normally used by bees  as a signal that they are on their way out of the hive. So when a call causes the signal to go off, the bees get confused.

While cell phones may not be the sole problem with the bees, since there has been speculation that fungus, climate change, or pesticides may be causing bee deaths. But, since it seems clear that bees are affected by cell phone signals, does that make you think twice about your new smart phone?