OT Are Cell Phones the blame?

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I'd be happy to give mine up.....would you?

Reply to
Scott in Florida
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Sure. I think cell phones are way over used. That can be corrected by the cell phone companies charging per minute instead of have plans which give users 5000 (or what ever) minutes a month for xx dollars. Even though people don't need all that time they use it anyway for silly phone calls.

Charge by the minute, say .10/minute and I guarantee the cell phone usage would drop dramatically and save the bees.

Reply to
dbu.,

Yes, & no.

I am alarmed about the bee situation. OTOPH... is this the problem?

OTOH... it may well pose other risks/problems, if not this one of which we are not yet aware. (Other than the listening-to-others' loud conversations nuisance factor!).

OTOH.... I use my cell phone but seldom.

1) I use it to call parents & make doctor & dentist appts. from work. (There's no outside line in the classrooms, & finding one of the few ones in the building *when* one also happens to be free because the kids are in Music or it's lunch can a PITA. Besides others using the phones, have to cart one's stuff - slips of paper with nec. ph. no., planbook, gradebook, etc. with you looking for a free phone.)

2) I use it for the very occasional long distance call to people not on my free calls list on my land line. (E-mail has taken over long distance calling, for the most part.)

3) And I use it when on the road when I'm running late - prob. averages out to once - twice/year, but is then useful. Yesterday I ran into tied-up traffic due to an accident & was definitely going to be late getting down to my parents'. I had to be there at 'x' time, & it wasn't happening... was going to be about half an hour late. By calling them, my mother could plan around my tardiness & make alternate plans for until I got there. (Not to mention, not worry that *I'd* been in an accident.)

IOW, I'm not contributing greatly to any fallout from cell phone use, yet I do use one. Occasionally.

People who walk arounsd w/one glued to their ear... that I don't get.

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

You know by now what I think of cell phones. I wonder if th "global warming environmentalist" crowd would be willing to give up their phones if this was proven to be true. Let's see if they are going to give up their convenience or just demand others give up theirs.

Reply to
badgolferman

My cell phone is a pay as you go....minute by minute...

That is a great way to keep your b/sing down.

Reply to
Scott in Florida

As indicated in my previous post, how about *way less* usage of them opposed to no usage? (That's given they present a problem... which they might well. In general, this sort of thing has been in the news for years - re: possible medical probs for people using them.)

As a sort of analogy (which is actually on topic): Does anyone expect people to stop driving cars, for ex? Nope. But we do expect much more fuel efficient/lower emissions cars to be built. A better analogy would probably be: use of available public transit & car pooling when feasible. IOW, less usage as opposed to no usage.

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

That was an interesting article Scott. A long time ago, I used to raise bees, and harvest their honey. It's alot of work and the bees are very sensitive to outside disturbances. Hives must be moved at night when all of the members of that hive are in it, if done during daylight you will loose all the bees out of the hive at that time because they use the sun's position for navigation to and from chosen points, most importantly, back to the hive. Even if you move it only a few feet. In winter months you must feed them a mix of powdered sugar and penicillin to help ward off any disease that they may contract. Each hive has a different personality derived from the queen, and you learn how far you can go with each. Wax moths are their nemesis, destroying young bee larvae and chewing tunnels and holes throughout the entire hive. The wax moth larvae can live in the hives for a very long time and you have to first, relocate whats left of the entire hive, disassemble each hive and it's components and literally use a metal pick to remove wax moth larvae. Cleaning out an infestation is a really a bad job. Maybe it is, but I would be skeptical that cell phone usage is a problem since they are so sensitive to other biological forces that I have experienced first hand. IMHO.

Reply to
user

As is mine, & at this point I have over 27 hours racked up from rolled-over minutes. Wish I could get an even cheaper pre-paid plan (like $5./month!) or else get a cash rebate on most of the unused minutes...

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

The other thing is... is this (the bee problem, to this extent) being found world-wide, or just in the United States? I merely skimmed through it, but for ex., the article said that although the numbers have decreased, that the U.K. isn't seeing the same immediate/pronounced problem that is occurring in the U.S.

Cathy

Reply to
Cathy F.

Look at ATT/Cingular.

Two plans.

One you spend a buck any day you use it plus 10 cents a minute and all calls to other ATT customers are free.

The second one is purely by the minute.

I use the first, because my Air Force son is on it.

The only gotcha?

Minutes expire if you don't refill by a certain time after you buy them.

25 bucks lasts 3 months I think.

100 lasts a year. That is what I do. Reload with a hunsky when it gets down.

Reply to
Scott in Florida

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing....

Reply to
Scott in Florida

I remember quit a few years ago an entire hive of bees wound up on a airplane boarding ramp in the middle of a aircraft parking area. It was a hugh mess of bees, if I remember I think we called a local beekeeper and they came out and removed all of them. Why would bees do something like that?

Reply to
dbu.,

If not for my phone I could only get on the net when I'm at home ;)

mike

Reply to
Mike Hunter

When that many mass about an area they are almost always following the queen. At times there becomes two queens in a hive and then the weakest will either be killed or leave. When that happens, many workers will follow the displaced queen, with no permanent hive to go to. They unfortunately do what you witnessed. If the bee keeper found the queen in that mass, he can easily coax the lot of them into any container and he then has a free colony just to place into a new hive. Bees are relatively expensive, and sold by the pound. The most docile that I've found were the Italian bees, usually ordered from Georgia.

Reply to
user

The storey says, "Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well."

Well, unless Britain has not had cell phones until very recently, I would say that the conjecture that cell phones or cell phone towers disrupt pollunation is incorrect. AFAIK, the usuage of cell phones in the US, Europe and UK occurred at about the same time.

In addition, if this conjecture is correct, there should be fewer effects seen in areas with fewer cell phone towers. And there are areas of the US and probably Europe with little or no cell phone coverage. There might also be fewer effects right under cell phone towers because cell phone towers have their antennae designed so that the radiation spreads outward, rather than equally in all directions. So the amount of radiation is less right under the towers (which is also a good reason to locate cell phone towers near or over schools).

So the conjecture should be easy to test.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

Mind your own Bee's wax!

Interesting. Not something I'd want to do really. Sounds very intensive. Is selling the honey and the wax worth the effort?

Reply to
Hachiroku

You can pry my cellphone from my... No. I might cut my usage if they find an actual cause and effect link, but I ain't givin' it up - it's a safety issue.

Try finding a payphone when you need one - they're practically extinct. And businesses have been burned too many times with scams (like a customer asking to call a "Toll-Free" number that really isn't) so they are very reluctant to let you use their phones.

And one of these other odd factors is probably behind the colony disappearances. They probably got caught in an Africanized Bee Swarm Trap and were dead before they were found and could get a reprieve.

They swarm to start new hives. The old hive raises a second queen, and as soon as she can fly the hive splits in two - one queen leaves and takes roughly half the workers and drones with her. (If they get confused and all leave, it could cause the condition above...)

They form a big ball like that when the swarm stops for the night to conserve warmth. When they find a suitable hole or hollow to build a new permanent hive, they settle in.

The local Agricultural Commission sets out swarm traps (see above) trying to catch the Africanized bees - it's a 5-gallon plastic bucket with a hole in the lid, and inside there's a ball on a string with the starting base of a comb and a triangular plug for the entrance hole.

When the queen and the rest of the swarm thinks they've found a beautiful hive location they settle in and start building new wax combs on the base. Their massed weight breaks the string and the plug closes the entrance, trapping the queen and majority of the worker bees inside.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Unless you have means to set up a commercial operation, IMHO, it's only to be considered a hobby. We had centrifugal honey extractors, hot knife stations, and it still was an incredible amount of heavy hard work. Selling the comb is not any more lucrative. I can't believe that when you look at the price of a jar of honey that it costs so little. It's interesting to note that honey is one of the only natural food that never spoils. They have found quantities of it in Egyptian tombs that is still good thousands of years old, if it has crystallized you only have to heat it up to regain and keep again its original form.

Reply to
user

I can't count the number of times I've seen people shopping in the supermarket and yakking on the cellphone....and have heard people calling home to ask, "should I get a half-gallon of milk or a gallon?" ...and "should I get cheddar or swiss...or provolone?" Jeez, rent some smarts and ask before you leave home!

I'm overjoyed that the FAA has proclaimed that cellphone use on a plane is still verboten. Imagine being in the seat next to someone who just 'has to' keep in touch with friends and family for the entire length of your trip! It's a good thing airplane windows don't open, or there'd be people thrown overboard.

Reply to
mack

When we were in England in 1998, there were seemingly many MORE people with phones up to their ears than in the US. One day walking in London, I counted people with phones (connected, that is, to someone and talking) and the first fourteen pedestrians I looked at had them to their ears, and the fifteenth walked with hands at his sides, with no phone in evidence!

Reply to
mack

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