Cordless Phones

[Michael 365]

Good evening, everybody, and heres hoping for a good weekend all round.

The topic I wish to bring up concerns Cordless phones..... Domestic phones, with a base unit and hand unit that you can take out into the garden etc., rather than mobiles.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a call on my cordless phone in the garden, near my hive; I wasn't veiled up, as I was checking out the vegetable patch, and in the past have had no problems. On this occasion, one of the Girls seemed to go straight for the phone, and I received a sting on the edge of my ear, right next to where the phone was...I thought it unusual at the time, but forgot about it.

Until this evening, when I took another call in roughly the same area of the garden.....only for one of the girls to come straight at me, heading for the ear/phone. I hung up and walked away pretty sharply, and she decided to retreat....I was not stung on this occasion; but the intent appeared very real.

The question is, is this a recognised behaviour? Do the signals annoy them?

Has anyone else any experiences similar?

Regards to all, Michael

 

[Lois]

She was probably miffed because you were'nt talking to her!

 

[oliver90owner]

You need to carry out some reasonably controlled experiments to ascertain 1) whether it was the phone which attracted the bees and scondly that it was the signal that got their attention. Should not be difficult to set up a fair test to remove the variables.

Regards, RAB

 

[Poly Hive]

same walk ........no phone.

KISS

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

Followed by same walk with a kipper or slice of bacon or some such thing up to your ear.

 

[oliver90owner]

And phone, no signal.

And phone with signal.

All unwanted variables need to be eliminated.

Regards, RAB

 

[JamesB]

And phone, no signal.

And phone with signal.

All unwanted variables need to be eliminated.

Regards, RAB

few weeks ago my mobile phone rang while i was inspecting a brood (passed the phone to my old man) while he was talking i i wondered where all the bee's were
(having had a previous experience of bees marching one after another into a hole in my overalls - i did a quick check)

there were basically heading straight for my dad and bombing him continuosly lol
now i switch the damn thing off (at the request of my dad ofc) but i dont know if they are attracted to the phone or not but it seemed very conincidental to me

 

[oliver90owner]

If these observations are confirmed by experiment (I would not be at all surprised and expect they probably will be), we have another version of the age-old 'grumpy bees near overhead transmission lines' reports.

Regards, RAB

 

[clare p]

On topic in an off topic way

Don't start me on digital or mobile phones ( or wifi )

I don't carry a mobile phone, and refuse to use a phone without a cable.

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. I stopped using phones that day and will only hold one to my head in an emergency now (and change ears every 5 seconds)

I choose locations where we as a family live by their lack of phone signal ( I think it is a selling point in a home)

It is only going to be a matter of time before we are told by the "scientists" that mobile phones are bad for our health. AND my children can forget it if they want one !!!!!

So the bees are sensible and are trying to pass on the message that maybe these phones are not good for you!

Love Clare

 

[jimbeekeeper]

A strange set of coincidences and a conclusion is drawn!


Is cancer new or have we just been able to find it now and give it a name? I suspect so and that it has always been around even before mobile phones.

There is more natural radiation than man-made.

 

[kazmcc]

Don't start me on digital or mobile phones ( or wifi )

I don't carry a mobile phone, and refuse to use a phone without a cable.

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. I stopped using phones that day and will only hold one to my head in an emergency now (and change ears every 5 seconds)

I choose locations where we as a family live by their lack of phone signal ( I think it is a selling point in a home)

It is only going to be a matter of time before we are told by the "scientists" that mobile phones are bad for our health. AND my children can forget it if they want one !!!!!

So the bees are sensible and are trying to pass on the message that maybe these phones are not good for you!

Love Clare

I took that into consideration when allowing my children a mobile. As mobiles haven't been around long enough for anyone to really be able to definitley say whether they cause cancer or not, I decided that my children would only have a mobile when the started secondary school. I know we managed without one, but my son has to travel through a busy part of town and got it him for peace of mind in case of emergency. My eldest one now has a phone, and we've spoken about the risks. He's a sensible lad and doesn't spend time chatting on it. I think I'm the only person he speaks to on it, although I am sure that will change in a couple of years time lol

Wasn't there advice given to use a hands free kit if you were worried about holding it by your brain?

 

[oliver90owner]

There is more natural radiation than man-made.

There most certainly is - from the Sun, for instance! Uniform, natural (we evolved under those conditions) and not much in the microwave part of the spectrum (although the cordless phone may be at a much higher frequency). Try telling that to a group of leukemia sufferers who got their affliction from being too close to high tension power lines!

Mobile phones Rx from local transmitters and Tx to those same sites. Microwaves are used to heat water, by vibrating water moecules. Some mobiles were terrible from the spurious emissions point of view, several years ago. Whether they have improved to a 'safe' level is unknown - not enough reliable data of tumours and other related problems yet. Or maybe there is and the manufacturers are keeping any negative information nicely suppressed.

Lets think of other similar situations - tobacco smoking, asbestos, CFCs, pesticide residues along the food chain, dioxins, variant-CJD, to name but a few.

To simply compare man-made radiation with the 'natural' varieties is just downright whitewashing as far as I am concerned. Humans are responsible for most of the non-natural disasters which occur.

RAB

 

[JamesB]

As others have said, more experiments are needed, but i know i wont have my mobile switched on near a hive without a hat & veil at least lol

 

[wilderness]

It's been mentioned before but our association guru is deaf so wears hearing aids. If he forgets to turn them off before opening a hive he gets a lot of attention either side of his head.

We also use a portable PA system during hive inspections so that everyone can hear what he says. One time he put the mic on the outside of his veil as he was already suited up. The bees stung the mic a lot of times. It was black and furry so maybe nothing to do with electrical signals but ...

 

[Dishmop]

Put your phone near a hive and ring it with another phone and see what happens.

 

[Brosville]

As to how dangerous mobile 'phones and their ilk my be, I really don't know, BUT I have noticed some anomalous views on the subject - usually centring round the danger of mobile 'phone masts- if you look at how the things work, the power used, and the fact that the power "drops off" as the square of distance, IF a mobile 'phone mast is dangerous, mobile phones are thousands of times more so............ In simple terms, the mast transmitting power is only a few times more powerful than a mobile 'phone - the closest you can probably get to the business end of a mast is 50 feet or so, the mobile is an inch from your brain........ 600 times 600 is 360,000 - if the mast were using ten times the power (it's usually less than that), the mobile is still going to be 36,000 times more dangerous..........
Then there's the complete "killer" on the weak reception areas theory - if we assume that the phones are the more dangerous, mainly because of our proximity to them, if there's a 'phone in one of those areas, it will "ramp up" it's transmit power to maximum, meaning that you're in more danger from mobiles in a weak transmission spot - which actually means (counter-intuitively) that if we accept that we can't ban the things completely, that we should actually campaign for more 'phone masts.............(then we'd get less power zapped at us overall.........)
Personally, I only use one as an emergency/occasional use device - apart from anything else, they're far too expensive to use regularly- a tenner's worth lasts me about 6-8 months on average (tip for fellow cheapskates- Asdamobile payg - 8p min for all phone calls, 4p for texts, no contract, no time bomb - will run on any Vodafone handset as it uses their network......)

 

[oliver90owner]

a tenner's worth lasts me about 6-8 months on average

I can beat that. I got one (hand down from my wife) with a fiver air-time.
that lasted about 6 weeks (until I rang my brother on a different network!). Then ran a month without any credit. Put 20 quid on it and topped it up with another 20 quid 2 years ago, last May. Still have 20 quid air-time on it. The first top-up was November 2005! The secret is avoiding the 60p daily charge; I ring her and 'hang up' and she rings me back. Saves about £180 a year. By October this year that will theoretically be a saving of close to £900 but it will be a bit less than that as she does not make calls to me on quite that number of days.

Regards, RAB

 

[FROGDOGDIVER]

Followed by same walk with a kipper or slice of bacon or some such thing up to your ear.

 

[justme]

Good evening, everybody, and heres hoping for a good weekend all round.

The topic I wish to bring up concerns Cordless phones..... Domestic phones, with a base unit and hand unit that you can take out into the garden etc., rather than mobiles.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a call on my cordless phone in the garden, near my hive; I wasn't veiled up, as I was checking out the vegetable patch, and in the past have had no problems. On this occasion, one of the Girls seemed to go straight for the phone, and I received a sting on the edge of my ear, right next to where the phone was...I thought it unusual at the time, but forgot about it.

Until this evening, when I took another call in roughly the same area of the garden.....only for one of the girls to come straight at me, heading for the ear/phone. I hung up and walked away pretty sharply, and she decided to retreat....I was not stung on this occasion; but the intent appeared very real.

The question is, is this a recognised behaviour? Do the signals annoy them?

Has anyone else any experiences similar?

Regards to all, Michael

What colours your phone? When my mobile is in my pocket they ignore it. When its in view, trying to take pictures for instance they go for it. Its black. Di

 

[buzz lightyear]

Michael 365, pm sent