Sunday, May 20, 2007

Ummm, about those vanishing honey bees

We know that bees (and other things) apparently respond to the earth's magnetic field as part of their navigation mechanisms. Pretty cool eh?
Honey bees orient to the earth's magnetic field. This ability may be associated with a region of transversely oriented magnetic material in the front of the abdomen. The magnetic moment apparently develops in the pupal state and persists in the adults.
Now we also notice that very recently the earth's magnetic poles have decided to go moving around in fairly radical way.
After some 400 years of relative stability, Earth's North Magnetic Pole has moved nearly 1,100 kilometers out into the Arctic Ocean during the last century and at its present rate could move from northern Canada to Siberia within the next half-century[...]
Radically shifting magnetic fields, lost honey bees? I suppose I'm a retard to think there might be a connection here that makes more sense than blaming it on global warming...

...but then again global warming is the cause of everything, so I'm going to have to go with the smart money and blame these radical movements of the north pole on it too.

Damn Bush -- that sellout SOB is giving the fucking north pole to the Russians!

9 comments:

Unknown said...

The connection of a shifting electromagnetic field of the earth with the disappearing bees occured to me as well along with a big uuuuhhhmmmmm. Is anyone exploring this possibility seriously?

Purple Avenger said...

Is anyone exploring this possibility seriously?

There's no fat research grants in exploring possibilities that can't be blamed on BushCo ;->

Mike said...

This and the cell phone tower theory make the most sense to me. The one parasite that they found in the dead bees has been known for a long time and hasn't had any known tendency to cause mass die offs among bee populations.

Purple Avenger said...

I don't know if anyone is doing a control experiment in areas without cell coverage -- like the depths of the everglades where there's no houses and/or even roads. That would be a useful data point.

Douglas said...

I don't buy em manipulation. Bee's are pheromonic creatures. No bee's who been there before they get lost. The broad navigation thing could have a lot of answers, but bee's exit the nest in a swarm, and cover all area's, and should be able to find there way back because of pheremones.

Purple Avenger said...

AFAIK pheromones effectiveness isn't reduced by temperature changes of less than 1 degree.

If not global warming, or EM, then what?

Douglas said...

Wind?

And why the HELL! is my wickedpinto account suddenly showing my first name?!

Douglas said...

Also, more bee's are maintained in captivity than in the wild (at least in the local continent) maybe, a learned behaviour is to change tactics? There is after all only a few thinking bee's, maybe the bee's have evolved to our manipulation of their use for the purposes of self preservation, rather than giving into the more primal attitudes that they had before.

I don't mean they are intelligent, but maybe, we have domesticated them a bit, is that possible?

Douglas said...

My real point is. . . .how does EM interfere with smell?

I've been in high freq environments and I know there is a different sensation that is indefinable, but my sense of smell never failed me.

EM interrupts the primary method of communication that bee's use? Thats why I don't know, high tension wires? maybe, but not cell towers.