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What follows is a review by a very knowledgable beekeeper of the study behind the recent honeybee cellphone news story which ran in the UK last weekend.
To be considerate of the author's privacy I have not listed his name. To be clear this information was provided to me and is not "my" words, I'm just posting this information as I thought it was of interest and it also backs up my recent comments about crazy claims being made in the media concerning causes of the honeybee losses in USA.
When e-mailed, Prof Hermann Stever, one of the researchers
involved in the studies cited by the press articles about
"cell phones and bees", such as:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
replied as follows:
> "First of all I have to clear up that our research is
> specifically not related on the massive losses of bees
> around the world lately (often called "CCD"). We study
> the influence of electromagnetic fields (especially of
> DECT-mobile phone) on the learning ability of bees.
> So we can not explain the CCD-phenomenon itself.
> Attached to this email you find a contribution concerning
> our pilot-study in 2005 published in the paper "ACTA SYSTEMICA
> - IIAS International Journal" (Vol. VI, No. 1, pp. 1-6).
> Because of many inquiries, a contribution concerning our
> follow up-study in 2006 today is published in English on
> our website http://agbi.uni-landau.de/materialien.htm.
I've glanced at the preprints of the papers they have produced,
and I was thoroughly unimpressed, both with the basic techniques
employed, and with startling lack of understanding of "basic bee
behavior and biology" evinced by the methodology and the
interpretation of the "data".
I'd submit that no actual "data" was gathered at all, due
to basic and massive mistakes in experiment design, as
follows:
In one paper:
http://agbi.uni-landau.de/material_download/preprint_IAAS_2007.pdf
they compared return times for bees that had been trapped exiting
the hive, gassed with CO2, marked, and then released 500 meters
away from the hive.
Problem is, they may have been trapping experienced foragers in
some cases, and bees on their first orientation flight in others.
They also apparently had no idea that a forager, trapped upon
exiting the hive and then released, has no interest in returning
directly to the hive, but instead, will still go out and forage,
even after being trapped, detained, gassed, marked, and released.
In this context, measuring "return time" is so utterly meaningless
that it can be considered a random number.
I lead workshops on bee-lining here and there, and if weather is
poor or time available is short, we will capture bees exiting a
hive's entrance reducer to "pre-load" bee-lining boxes for the
workshop participants to save them the trouble of capturing bees
from flower patches. Even though the bees are left in the feeding
chamber long enough for them all to "tank up" with nectar, some bees,
upon release, will do the sort of hovering flight one sees at a hive
entrance, orienting to the bee-lining box, rather than a hive
entrance. These are clearly bees that were captured "in error",
bees with perhaps no flight experience at all, certainly bees
without a firm handle on the hive's location or the local terrain.
These bees are certain to have slim chances of returning to their
hive in any reasonable time period, if they return at all.
If I were to capture and then release bees without providing them
with "nectar" and time to "tank up", bees with less than a "full
tank" are certain to continue foraging, rather than return directly
to the hive, which would makes the "winners" of the contest the
bees that are foraging on the closest patch of blooms currently
providing some groceries.
In the other paper:
http://agbi.uni-landau.de/material_download/IAAS_2006.pdf
We find the statement (confession!):
"In the course of the experiment three exposed colonies
and one non-exposed colony broke down. To compute the
average weight of the honeycombs over all analyzed
colonies their weight was used at the time of the breakdown.
While the weight of the frames for the honeycombs was similar
at the beginning, the average total weights of the honeycombs,
which were built by non-exposed bees, came to 1326 g while
the average honeycomb weight of the exposed bees amount 1045 g.
The difference of 281 g corresponds to 21.1%."
So, the results were skewed by using data from colonies that
were on the verge of "break down" (from varroa infestation,
one assumes), and of 16 total colonies, only one of the eight
"non-exposed" hives "broke down", while three of the eight
"exposed" hives "broke down".
It should be no wonder at all that when 3 of 8 colonies in
one group of hives is suffering from something that causes
them to "break down", that group of colonies will have a
lower colony weight gain. When the other group has only
one hive "break down", it is highly likely to have a much
better set of "weight gain" numbers.
Apparently, the peer review group selected for the "International
Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics"
(where these papers have been either submitted or published)
does not include beekeepers, entomologists, or even intelligent
12-year olds who have read a few books about bees.
To summarize, the press reporting was pure speculation by
reporters who neglected to ask even basic questions of the
authors of the cited papers, and was based upon "science"
that would not even get past the editor of one's local
beekeeper association newsletter.
