Cordless Phones

[Firegazer]

It seems likely that anything setting up a significant field will annoy them.

Normally (i.e. a few million years ago, when their current behavioural instincts were being selected for), the only strong fields they would experience would be upcoming electrical storms which are very bad for bees - either lots of rain, your tree being struck by lightning, the forest being set on fire, etc.

When I had an MG Midget I could hear the air breaking down and feel the field from power lines when I drove under them. I'm sure bees, with their fluffy branched hairs and possible sense of the Earth's magnetic field, can detect fields like this much better than we can.

Not sure why they would want to attack the source, mind you. A genetic instinct to attack large cumulo-nimbus clouds wouldn't get them very far . . .

FG

PS I once went to an IEE lecture on clever antennas on mobile phones to cope with the brain absorbing most of the signal and causing problems (for the communication). In the end, they couldn't work out how to adaptively bend the reception pattern around the head reliably, so decided to just add more power to the handset to ensure it worked properly; this meant extra radiation absorbed by your brain, but at least they didn't drop calls when you turned around mid-call (!)

 

[drstitson]

Ffs

"About 10 years ago I used a mobile phone, on my way to work in the car day in day out (M25 to LHR) after 1 month I developed a lump behind my ear."

what was the lump? what happened to it? did it jut go away itself? did you have it excised?

Purely coincidence IMHO and if you live your whole life based around coincidences (good or bad) rather than evidence then i pity you.

whilst i am happy to accept that long term excessive use of mobiles may well have risks attached - especially to developing kids brains (i don't believe nay child needs or should have a mobile - at a push a simple device that does emergency calls only is excusable).

however, a one off call is not going to cause any problems whatsoever.

 

[Michael 365]

Dear All,

Thanks for your responses; you have certainly given me some ideas.

The phone is white, by the way; I'll certainly be experimenting but think I'll veil up before any experimentation! They certainly seem to make a bee line (sorry....couldn't resist....)for the phone when its receiving/sending a signal. They seem to ignore it when its not 'in call' so to speak.

Other information that I could perhaps have given is that I have been experiencing a bit of robbing recently, so they are a bit feisty generally.

Will experiment tomorrow morning.....am due an inspection then anway.

Regards to all, and hope you and your Bees are enjoying the good weather,
Michael

 

[Brian Bush]

I have had similar experiences with the cordless phone in the garden. SWMBO brought me the phone in the garden and before I could answer the newbee's question, a little b****r had roomed in on my ear from nowhere and stung me. Unsure whether this was just random the next time I received a call in thwe garden I placed the phone on a bench 2m away. Immediately bees from the hive 10m away were buzzing round the phone.
My colleague had a similar experience with his mobile. (Probably there is a frequency thing that sets them off).

 

[jimbeekeeper]

There’s a simple answer to all this and some further experiments that can be carried out.

Simple answer is " they are female" Similar reactions to phones are observed in the human female species. A desire to be close to a phone and despite having just seen friend X only 10 minutes ago face to face they then require to talk for 2hrs on the phone.

It will be noted that if the Drones venture near the phone it will be for a very short time.

Additional experiments would be to substitute the phone for the following items and observe the results.

1 The latest female type magazine, (Chat, Hello, Women’s weakly etc)
2 A pair or the latest shoes
3 A free use of a credit card
4 Anything gold, solver or diamonds


Please report back your findings