Bee Culture Magazine Publishes Two Articles on Bees, Wireless and Electromagnetic Radiation

Bee Culture Magazine of American Beekeeping  has published two articles by Ross Conrad on the impact of electromagnetic fields to bees and pollinators. Ross Conrad is the author of Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture, 2nd Edition and co-author of The Land of Milk and Honey: A history of beekeeping in Vermont. 

“We are thankful for these important articles. FCC and ICNIRP radiation limits were then designed for humans, not animals. Insects, birds and airborne species are unprotected as regulations do not apply to wildlife.  Trees, plants and bacteria are also impacted by RF, yet are ignored by human centric regulations.” stated Theodora Scarato Executive Director of Environmental Health Trust. “The judge ruled in our historic lawsuit EHT et al. v FCC that the FCC had ignored scientific evidence on environmental effects when the agency refused to update our  1996 FCC exposure limits.” 

Excerpts from the article: 

“A review of the literature published just this past year came to the conclusion that there is sufficient evidence to support claims of damage caused by electromagnetic radiation. The study’s author goes on to state that “…electromagnetic radiation should be considered seriously as a complementary driver for the dramatic decline in insects, acting in synergy with agricultural intensification, pesticides, invasive species and climate change. The extent that anthropogenic electromagnetic radiation represents a significant threat to insect pollinators is unresolved and plausible.” (Balmori 2021)

“Up until recently, the range of frequencies used for wireless communication has not risen above 6 GHz (2G, 3G, 4G, and WiFi). The impending deployment of the new and highly anticipated 5G technology utilizes a signal of 120 GHz. Research on insects showed that as the power density of frequencies above 6 GHz increased, the power absorbed by the invertebrates studied increased from three to 370 percent (Thielens et. al. 2018) making the importance of being able to understand the potential threat to pollinators from electromagnetic radiation all the more urgent.”

Environmental Health Trust is working to highlight the impacts of wireless to pollinators. See a list of published research on bees here.  Download our factsheet on climate, wildlife and 5G here. Please join our newsletter to stay in touch here.  DONATE to support our work. 

‘Queen Exposure

The impact of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMR) on queen bees appears to be significant. The detrimental impacts include poor queen cell production, reduced successful emergence of queens, reduced weight gain, reduced egg laying and subsequently, poor brood production, decreased Winter survival and increases in queen failure and queen loss.

“Industries are fond of using doubt and a lack of scientific certainty to counter concerns about health and the environment from the effects of their products and business practices. As we have reviewed in this two-part article, there is quite a bit of proof of potential harm from EMFs to bees and beekeepers. Unfortunately the large well-funded cell phone industry PR machine has successfully buried it, put pressure on journals not to publish damaging studies, and has had their disinformation specialists plant falsehoods that are often repeated by lay people and sincere, well-meaning experts and professionals which sows doubt and confusion. These are all actions we have come to expect from industries that deal with health and safety issues as a political and public relations problem and allow profits to take precedence over science.

Just as big tobacco was able to manipulate studies, capture much of the regulatory and legislative processes to prevent and slow meaningful action, and use public relations and the media to spread misinformation favorable to their bottom line, the pesticide industry, fossil fuel industry and now WiFi/Internet-reliant industries are following the same playbook.”

Listen to a podcast of Theodora Scarato interviewing Katie Alvord, author of “Is Wireless Technology an Environmental Health Risk?”  Society of Environmental Journalists Journal on Spotify.

Read more about the environmental impacts of wireless:

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