Magnetics and/or Solar storms

[simplyhoney]

Has anyone heard of any research in the Magnetic fields of the earth changing and/or Solar storms in regards to "ccd"? I have been meaning to do some myself but it is spring and the bees are doing better so I prefer to take care of them.
I did happen to look at a gov. website that had time tables and alerts for solar activity that affects radio stations ect. The table showed several storms in July and in October. It probably is coincidental but this is when I saw major problem with population decline (not due to varroa).
Just a thought.

[Barry Digman]

Hmmmmm......
It would be interesting to see the correlation between the discovery of empty hives before and after this event.


http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Solar-Storms-Imperil-GPS-Systems/story.xhtml?story_id=012000DWHAY0

[simplyhoney]

Thanks for the link Coyote!!

I could maybe explain the sudden diappearance but it still wouldn't explain why bees, waxmoths, and beetles won't touch the affected hives for along time later. Perhaps it actually screws with them bad enough that they can't function........and they can't ever really recover until they are put on good forage and can hatch a new generation. At any rate it's no more of a lame hypothisis as cell phones.

[carbide]

From the report cited above,

"Measurements with NJIT's solar radiotelescope confirmed, at its peak, the burst produced 20,000 times more radio emission than the entire rest of the Sun," he said in a statement. "This was enough to swamp GPS receivers over the entire sunlit side of Earth."

If the solar flares effect the "entire sunlit side of Earth", why wouldn't they effect all hives under the sun?

[Jim Fischer]

About the most complete presentation of this set of dots on the far
fringes of reality that some are trying to connect and spell "CCD"
is "Beans, Bees and Flares" 03/21/07 Financial Sense University
by Paul Skarp of AaronTrade.com
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/skarp/2007/0321.html

This speculation ignores that prior "solar max" events have not resulted in
any documented widespread problems with bees, and that the current
status of the sun is nowhere near the next "solar max" event, estimated for
2011 or so. Futher, the solar cycle is a regular 11-year thing, so if it had
any effect, we'd see it every 11 years or so at "solar max". We haven't.

Even during periods of extreme solar activity, there has never even been an
increase in cases of sunburn noted, as our atmosphere and magnetic field
protect us from most of the emissions put out by the Sun. The net impact
of such events has been more of a concern to communications satellite
operators and, in isolated cases, power grid operators.

From the point of view of bees, the UV patterns formed in the sky by which
it navigates on sunny days would likely become easier for bees to detect
during periods of higher than normal solar activity.

From an "electro-magnetic" point of view, bees are unlike birds.
Birds clearly do have "compasses" in the form of actual iron deposits
near their little bird-brains. Bee's do have small amounts of metals
distributed throughout their bodies, but they do not change behavior
in the least when subjected to even powerful magnetic fields.
This has been tried multiple times, so we need not rely on only one
study to confirm this.

I guess that bees don't have magnetic compasses because the amount
or iron required to react with the earth's magnetic field would be to
heavy a "instruments" weight for such a tiny creature, after all, iron
is heavy! :)

[simplyhoney]

Jim,

You are one smart honkey-mo-fo (no offense). Convinced me. Thanks for the explaination. The outter lunatic frenge theory rests. How about spores or fungus? From Austrailia?