Mashable reports that Cellphones Could Be Killing Bees, quoting a study conducted by Daniel Favre at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Favre found that mobile phone radiation radically altered the bees’ behavior and may be responsible for disorienting and eventually killing large numbers of the insects.

Favre tested honeybees’ reactions to nearby cellphones in different modes: off, standby and making a call.

“The results of the present pilot study clearly show that the presence of actively communicating mobile phone handsets in the close vicinity of honeybees had a dramatic effect,” Favre says in his report. “Honeybees are sensitive to pulsed electromagnetic fields generated by the mobile telephones.” In other words, the cellphone signals confuse bees to the point where they leave the hive and don’t return.

The report, titled “Mobile phone-induced honeybee worker piping”, which was published online in April 2011 is available here.

This is not the first time electromagnetic pollution is implicated in the deaths or sudden disappearance of bees. Some further discussion and several links can be found in

Millions of Bees Die – Are Electromagnetic Signals To Blame?

Even though there have been indications that electromagnetic radiation may be to blame for bee deaths and adverse health effects on humans, the mobile phone industry’s lobby efforts have so far been successful in keeping the matter out of the press. There has been no re-thinking of our use of microwaves in communications technology, much less a serious look at how one might go about to change things.