May 2011, Volume 42, Issue 3, pp 270-279,
Open Access
This content is freely available online to anyone, anywhere at any time.
Date:
13 Apr 2011
Mobile phone-induced honeybee worker piping
- Daniel Favre
- … show all 1 hide
Abstract
The worldwide maintenance of the honeybee has major ecological, economic, and political implications. In the present study, electromagnetic waves originating from mobile phones were tested for potential effects on honeybee behavior. Mobile phone handsets were placed in the close vicinity of honeybees. The sound made by the bees was recorded and analyzed. The audiograms and spectrograms revealed that active mobile phone handsets have a dramatic impact on the behavior of the bees, namely by inducing the worker piping signal. In natural conditions, worker piping either announces the swarming process of the bee colony or is a signal of a disturbed bee colony.
Manuscript editor: Yves Le Conte
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- Title
- Mobile phone-induced honeybee worker piping
- Open Access
- Available under Open Access This content is freely available online to anyone, anywhere at any time.
- Journal
-
Apidologie
Volume 42, Issue 3 , pp 270-279
- Cover Date
- 2011-05-01
- DOI
- 10.1007/s13592-011-0016-x
- Print ISSN
- 0044-8435
- Online ISSN
- 1297-9678
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag
- Additional Links
- Topics
- Keywords
-
- worker bee
- acoustic communication
- mobile phone handset
- worker piping
- induction
- Industry Sectors
- Authors
-
-
Daniel Favre
(1)
(2)
-
Daniel Favre
- Author Affiliations
-
- 1. Scientific collaborator in the Laboratory of Cellular Biotechnology (LBTC), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
- 2. Apiary School of the City of Lausanne, Chemin du Bornalet 2, CH-1066, Épalinges, Switzerland