Bee placement question

[Tchapel]

Would it be a problem to locate an colonies under a main power line tower that carries all the electricity for the power company?

[Beeslave]

Buz,
The answer is no, IMHO. In FL one of the yards I had bees in was just off to the side of a main powerline and they did just as good as other yards. You don't want to place them directly underneath the power lines because the rights to that land is owned by the power company and the bees will be in their way when they do work on the lines. I could be wrong with that but you should ask the utility company in your area.

[Josh Carmack]

I have read it is a bad idea. I will say this, we have some HT wires near my home, HT or High Tension wires are the really tall big towers where you see three hot phase lines on top, and two smaller grounds on bottom. As a child I always thought they resembled the stick figure of a man holding the wires in his hands. They typically carry 200Kv to 1000Kv and will be your largest source of ELF EM radiation. The towers are less than a half mile from one aipairy that are the only ones that look to produce surplus. Now a few miles down I have two more colonies that started out as four. They are less than 100 feet from being directly under the same set of lines, albeit 2 -3 miles down. They have been steadily losing weight for the last few weeks. Their gross weight has dropped since moving them over to that location. I cannot say their unproductiveness is definitely due to the power lines, but my thoughts are it is... There is about 2000+ acres of soybeans within easy foraging distance of the hives, the rest being some corn, and mostly pasture/ CRP land There are other varibles to consider but until I do my experiment for a couple of years I'm not entirely convinced myself.. The entire time they have been in that location they have all but one been a headache. Going queenless, laying workers, ect.
I will test this further next year by placing a colony directly under them and another on the same field and area, but about 1/2 mile away from the HT lines. I intend to test this for myself because If I can prove to myself it doesn't greatly affect them it will open up tons of places to put them at due to the lines running the entire length of the county and obviously leaving thousands of acres unworkable around the towers that will be excelnt locations for aipairies. PS my uncle is one of the bigwigs at our local TVA CO-OP so he can answer the question of rather it will be "Legal" "Allowed" etc by TVA the govt. and so on

[wcubed]

In the days of AM car radios, Passing under a high tension line produced a blackout of signal - often with characteristic buzz of 60 cycle power frequency. That tells you that there is a significant electric/magnetic field at ground level beneath the lines.

The literature is fairly obscure on effects. Both pro and con on whether or not bees are affected. Nobody really knows.

The bees do have an internal ferrous node that could be a magnetic reference. Again, nobody knows for sure what the function of that node really is. Plenty of room for study about our pets.

On another thread I casually mentioned the bees internal GPS system. I believe that evidence suggests that they do have some sort of location fix. If that is magnetic, it could be affected adversely by the strong fields under the power lines. Satisfy your curosity, and let us know what you learn.

Walt

[bnatural]

In the days of AM car radios, Passing under a high tension line produced a blackout of signal - often with characteristic buzz of 60 cycle power frequency. That tells you that there is a significant electric/magnetic field at ground level beneath the lines.

Walt, was that caused by the field reaching to ground level or was it caused by the field acting as a signal barrier more up at the level of the wires? Have no idea, just curious.

Bill

[Josh Carmack]

bnatural

Maybe I can give some insight.

The frequency of a signal determines it's wavelength, the two terms are synonymous in the RF world. AM radio is long wavelength in the high kilohertz range or low MHZ range depending on which end of the dial you are on, 530 to 1700Khz. That makes a 1/4 wavelength on the AM band anywhere from 470' to to 150' long. That being important because 1/4 wavelength is the point where antennas and waveguides and obstacles become significant.

a radio opaque obstacle(keep in mind that light, and RF are one in the same, just different frequencies) needs to be at least the 1/4 wavelength to become radio opaque. So that explains why large buildings, structure, etc cause you to lose the carrier signal and 60hz hum becomes audible due to it being the most common noise emitted all over the earth. In this case the 60hz hum you hear is not due to overpowering, but due to the original signal being weakened to the point the radio cannot decipher it from the ambient noise (60hz emitted by almost everything plugged into the wall in the north Americas)on the spectrum. So, that explains you static and hum when going under bridges in narrow streets surrounded by large building etc.

Now, power lines are triple whammy, they are somewhat opaque to certain wavelengths, and they emit a 60hz RF sine wave. AM radio uses amplitude modification, or they modify the sine wave to carry the signal. When you take two sine waves of different freqs they either add to or take away from the signal of each other. So you wind up with a carrier signal that is predominantly 60Hz audio with small changes due to the original audio in the carrier signal. The radio see's this as Audio in the 60HZ frequency and therefore "plays" the 60hz audio. That is on top of the original signal being weakened by the opaqueness of the lines themselves, and the simple overpowement to the entire radio system by 60Hz "signal"

Why does it only happen when you are close?

That goes back to 1/4 wavelength again. An antenna needs to be on a fraction of a wavelength up to a wavelength to effectively radiate a signal.

A power line stops being a power line, and starts being a huge antenna beginning around 700 miles. in other words power lines cannot transmit electricity more than 700 or so miles because the power will be lost to the air. The lines that cause interference are nowhere near being long enough to be an effective radiator. Therefor the signal they emit is very weak and due to the inverse square law the power they emit drops off very rapidly. Thats why you have to be very close to them before they cause a large amount of interference.


Sorry for the long post, but I saw an opportunity to talk about something I really enjoy..LOL

[Josh Carmack]

Why doesn't FM radio suffer from the same effects?

Several reasons, it is in the VHF range vs HF for AM radio. that means the wavelength is smaller. slightly more than 11 feet on the low end of the dial. So, it can bounce down narrow alleys and inside buildings etc. Large power lines and bridges etc cannot block it because it can travel under through etc. Secondly the way the radio receives it. When you tune an FM radio, you are actually tuning a tiny transmitter inside it to a certain frequency. This transmitter is used as a reference by the radio. It automatically by design ignores any frequency more than 12.5Khz below that frequency, and 12.5 above it. It then "listens" to any frequency that is within that "bandwidth" of 25Khz. The FM broadcaster modulates the frequency within that 25Khz channel in sync with the audio it is broadcasting. The radio adds and subtracts the received signal in that channel to the tiny reference transmitter and produces the audio. This system is much less susceptible to interference due to the radio ignoring anything that doesn't fall within the channel spacing for the frequency it is tuned. 60Hz hum can be induced into an FM radio, but it is typically "down the line" from the tuner, and typically induced in the audio amplification section of the radio. All radios have an audio amp built into them to boost the micro volt audio signal to a listenable level. This is where most FM radios receive their interference.

I guess my last two post may be deleted due to being off topic, sorry for hijacking the thred to ramble about RF systems

[EastSideBuzz]

Power lines carry electricty at 50Hz or 60Hz, which creates a magnetic field which falls off at the square of the distance from the lines. Furthermore, power lines are done in 3-phase systems where you have 3 lines, each one 120 degrees out of phase with the other. If you superimposed all 3 together, you get zero. For a sufficient distance from the lines, the magnetic field is diminished by the square of the distance, and the sum of the fields from all 3 lines is zero, because the distance to each line is almost equal.

Which is still not as important as the frequency. These frequencies are nowhere near as harmful to the human body than high-frequency electro-magnetic radiation, such as, say, x-rays, or microwaves.

Even the studies on the effects on humans are not conclusive and doubt anyone has done one on bee's. But, try it and see if they produce less then not under the lines. Do 2 under and 2 not.

[KQ6AR]

Hey John,
Don't forget to add in the extra interference caused by broadband over powerline BPL, testing.

[Josh Carmack]

Yeah I hear they are really pissing some Hams off. Am I correct in assuming you user name is a call sign?

[jjgbee]

I used a location in the winter for 5 years. Lemon , Euc and brazillian peppers. All hives (350) were directly under 3 sets of hi voltage lines. In foggy weather the electricity would buzz and snap. To make story short, Bees did great in that location.

[treeoflife]

In my area, the power company uses herbicides every few years to control the growth of underbrush along the corridor. You might want to check into that.

[KQ6AR]

:ot:
Hi John,
Yes its my ham call.
The BPL was a stupid idea, many countries outlawed it years before we tried it. Colman Powels son saw it as a money making idea, & went ahead against the best advice. Most studies where done by the companies selling it, not the FCC.

BPL caused so much interference that long range communication on HF was impossible for many hams in the test area's. The military uses HF, air traffic control for long range flights, etc.

There are some ongoing investigations about some cover ups in the tests performed.



Yeah I hear they are really pissing some Hams off. Am I correct in assuming you user name is a call sign?

[wcubed]

Was aware of the cancellation concept, but its a tough assignment to twist those lines with their returns for maximum close in cancellation - they are deliberately separated because of the extreme high voltage.

Walt

[Josh Carmack]

I'm in agreement with walt here, the simple fact they do over power a radio means they are not canceled out. Interference waves are most definitely there, just not in measurable amounts unless you are at the center of the interference point at which they would become null. You would also need to twist them to recieve maximum cancellation. Impossible with most any dielectric at that voltage.

Again, thought i personally will not conclude they do or do not affect a bee's navigation or productiveness until I try my little experiment

[Josh Carmack]

hey E. S. B., I did a little more looking around and found the canceling affect is minimal, and is most noticeably measurable in "plane" with the lines. The three lines act similar to elements on a yagi antenna. a 3 element yagi is fairly directional, so the cancellation affect will also be directional. I don't know how deep your knowledge in antenna modeling, but the null zone from three phase lines is similar to the directional lobes that yagis are known for.

Which is why when wires are twisted to minimize interference is to cancel the yagi affect that comes from paralleled lines. Of course the twisting of lines is only possible in much much lower voltages.

[bnatural]

Great info. I remember from physics classes (and from posts here) that the energy reduces by the square of the distance. So, back to MY original question: does the 'field' emitted by high power lines make it from the top of those lines (where we know it is strong) to the ground to any significant degree, or is the static one hears from AM just the various interferences at work above the receiver? I have read many studies for personal reasons (see below), and none were inconclusive for any damage at ground level. As others have posted, regarding bees, I think one would have to worry more about the line crews clearing brush and doing general maintenance than radiation. They DO come by every few years and clear aloing the ROW that crosses my land, so that's a fact, vs. radiation, the effect of which seems to be inconclusive at best and more than likely non-existent at those distances.

As an aside, I grew up in suburbia about 100 yards from a line of REALLY big power lines (we called them 'high tension lines'). They were behind the houses across the street, maybe 100 - 150 yards away. Used to hear them hum like mad on foggy, drizzly days. As kids we played for hours all summer long under those lines, because it was a wide, long, open field with NO buildings in it, just tall grass - hard to find in suburban New Jersey. In the winter, kids from all over sledded one of the hills under those lines (back when they got snow in my old neighborhood). We suffered no side-effects (he said with a twitch in his eye). Also, our TV and radio reception in our house (pre-cable-antenna-on-the-roof days) was fine.

Bill

[KQ6AR]

Hi Josh,
Thats fine as long as you are a great enough distance away from the power source. But since they run right past most peoples houses it parallel with the streets.
From an interference point of view, the yagi is radiating in the direction of the houses on both sides of the street.

As far as bees I don't think residential lines cause much trouble. But the high tension 20kw probably do.



hey E. S. B., I did a little more looking around and found the canceling affect is minimal, and is most noticeably measurable in "plane" with the lines. The three lines act similar to elements on a yagi antenna. a 3 element yagi is fairly directional, so the cancellation affect will also be directional. I don't know how deep your knowledge in antenna modeling, but the null zone from three phase lines is similar to the directional lobes that yagis are known for.

Which is why when wires are twisted to minimize interference is to cancel the yagi affect that comes from paralleled lines. Of course the twisting of lines is only possible in much much lower voltages.

[Josh Carmack]

bnatural

The radiated pattern definitely makes it to the ground. I can't say how much, but if I had to venture a guess, I would say that in any one point you would receive maybe 10mW - 100mW. Perhaps more perhaps less. I'm sure there is research already done on that level, I'll see what I can find. To give you a comparison, cb radios are limited to 5 Watts along with hand held portable radios. Licensed mobile radios like whats found in a police car are limited to 50W. Radio station towers can be anywhere from 1KW all they way up to 1MW depending on the frequency and rather they are a clear channel or share that freq with another broadcaster in another region. Lets say that effective power is more than what I suspect, maybe even as high as 10W. It's still nothing compared to what is radiated at higher frequencies from broadcast antennas cell towers. Radar stations police cars etc etc etc. Also keep in mind that satellite powers are lower than what would be received from a power line. The effective power hitting the reflector on your satellite dish is in the 1mW to 10mW range

[Josh Carmack]

In all honesty I don't see it affecting bees. I have read in two different books it does, but these books never tried to prove anything, they never even gave any data to back themselves up. My two colonies that are under the lines now are doing better than they were two weeks ago, but as it stands they will not overwinter.

We don't know for sure rather or not bees use a magnetic reference. We do know for sure they use the sun. Birds have been proven to use a magnetic reference are not adversely affected by power lines. I like to experiment into technical fields, so It's going to be fun for me to experiment with it next season, but my method will not necessarily be accurate as I will only have 4 hives that I'm willing to test this with. So the variables of colony production will quite possibly negate all data observed.

[KQ6AR]

The FCC restricted me too 1500 watts peak envelope power.
From mobile or home.

[Josh Carmack]

Beings That Mr KQ6AR is licensed, he may actually provide more insight on allowed transmitting powers than I. Ive never been licensed, and am only working from memory from where I used to be a repairman for Motorola and my electronics days in the Navy. The more I think about it, I'm not so sure that VHF/UHF radios are limited to the 50 watt range, and that limit was more just a manufacturers limit on affordable mobile unit. Either way my point being that the radiated power at any given point is most definitely far below normal transmitting powers for radio stations etc, and you really don't see any literature stating that bee's beside towers are having trouble.

Every once in a while there comes a big scare that power lines, cell phones/towers, radio towers, microwaves, etc etc etc is the cause for all of mans ailments. I personally call BS on that because there has never been any solid evidence that living creatures are affected by EM radiation until it reaches the spectrum on the other side of visible light. UV, Xray Gamma. The EM spectrum in the 300nM to the 1pM range is capable of ionizing most tissue which causes burns deterioration etc.

[KQ6AR]

I completely agree with you Josh, given the short life expectancy of an average bee, & the low level of the EME field. I think its more important too people living under high tension lines for extended periods of time.

Some places don't allow schools to be built under them.

[reneal]

Well, My very first hive I kept directly underneath a 230 KV line that ran across the end of my property. Seemed to do fine. Of course that was before I had internet access, so my only swarm control was to hive them. After 3 years I had 10 hives under the same lines. The bees did great. Then the mites arrived & my population crashed, but can't blame the power lines for that.

I lived for 25 years in a house that was less than 200 ft from that line & suffered no ill effects, other than now I glow in the dark. Seriously, I know that Bonneville Power Administration has done a lot of studies on the EM effects of power lines up to 1000 KV, and found no statistically significant health impacts on livestock that was penned directly under the lines for years.

Also, on the rate on which the EM fields drop off from a power line a couple of people mentioned that it drops off as the square of the distance. That's true for a single conductor. For multiple conductors, its more like the cube of the distance, which means that it drops off really rapidly once you get farther away from the lines.

[davejw]

I'm just going to throw this out there....
Some recent studies in the news that I read/heard (rumor or truth I haven't looked into) showed that animals in the wild line themselves up all in the same direction when under the powerlines. I think the article I saw (been a few weeks or more) indicated that photo's from satellites showed groups of animals or herds all pointing in the same direction while under the lines. Maybe indicating that the powerlines do have some influence on animals' behavior. Bee's seem to navigate by sunlight. How the heck does the waggle in pitch black confines of the hive produce an exact location? If it is all vibrations I would suspect (speculating here) that powerlines right nearby (literally touching the tower maybe) may interfere with bee hives but I personally don't think you'll find any difference with hive placement near or far from powerlines would have any effect. One more thing. Put the hives right in the middle of the towers to reduce the "noise" being created by the insulators. This may reduce any interference.
Having speculated on all of this I'll resort to not commenting about this subject any further... dave

[beyondthesidewalks]

I read/heard (rumor or truth I haven't looked into) showed that animals in the wild line themselves up all in the same direction when under the powerlines.

This is probably attributable to the fact that once a herd of animals exits woods or deep brush into a ROW they spread out lengthwise in the ROW to graze. The mowed ROW that has been allowed to grow a little is a veritable buffet to a herd of cattle. It's their nature to spread out and claim their own little area to graze. I see it every time I move my cattle to fresh pasture.

We've got to be careful to not let other factors cloud our view and blame something on powerlines or towers. We also need to be careful about the research done on these topics. Much money has been spent by certain industries to protect their market. Facts are hard to come by. I feel it cannot be good to live under high tension lines for a long time. I used to work for the local power company and they spent money like previously mentioned but they also were vigilant to monitor encroachment in their ROWs. They didn't want amyone setting up shop under their high wires. I worked in the telecommunications dept. of that company and I know that you don't want a licensed microwave dish pointed at your house. Odds of that happening are slim.

I've stated in another post that 800/900 MHz freqs are probably the most dangerous to us. Paging used typical powers of 250, 330 and 500 watts on 3, 6 and 9 db gain antennas. Huge ERPs at the radiating point and they would all gather on the same building or tower. In some cases over 20 transmitters in the same location. That probably had the most potential to hurt anyone and paging is on the wane. Cellular uses somewhat lower power, typically doesn't gather to the same extent in the same location since they are more noise floor sensitive but is much more common today. These dangers are that the wavelength of these freqs are close the the size of your eyeballs and testes and can render you blind and/or sterile. I don't know what they would do to the bees.

My guiding factor has been that living under high wires or under an RF facility is probably not good for you so I don't. Of course I work in the RF field and am exposed to it every working day but the radios I deal with now are much lower power so I don't mind. Best part of this job is that I manage projects like putting up new towers and we're stacking a new tower tomorrow. It's like a little kid watching the fire trucks go by for me. I'll never tire of watching a tower go up.

[bnatural]

A few years ago the power company came through and replaced all the poles along the ROW that cuts through my back 40. They did this in March. They worked through a snowstorm. They brought in some VERY big equipment. If my hives had been anywhere in that line, I would have had to have moved them in winter. Simply would have not been possible with all the snow. Probably, I would have had to have just killed them and moved the boxes out of the way, since the power company works on a schedule, and it is called a 'Right of Way' for a reason. And, no, they did not tell me when they were coming through. Later, I learned they were behind schedule by almost six months, hence working in a snowstorm, so it probably wouldn't have helped.

The year before they came through to replace the poles they came in with some equally heavy equipment to cut back the encroaching trees and cut down the scrub growth. This was during the summer, but I would have had to move the hives then, too, if they asked. They did not spray, as far as I could see, but they sure used some mean chain saws.

My point is that, when all is said and done, I still think there is greater risk of damage to the hives from work being done in the PL ROW than from the energy emitted.

Bill

[Josh Carmack]

:ot:
A full wavelength for 850Mhz is 13.891", nowhere near the size of a bulls testes or mine. I think you are a little confused with microwave freqs. 2.4 Ghz , the only slightly dangerous frequency that is below the visible spectrum. It is still 4.92" which is larger than any humans eyes or testes.
Why is it a dangerous wavelength? Because water absorbs it extremely well.
Anything that absorbs a wavelength is heated by it, equal to the amount of power it dissipates vs re radiation over time. Water will absorb microwave frequencies in the 2.4Ghz range rather well. We are mostly water so it can cause us harm. The cornea is at the most risk due to lack of blood flow. the cornea can be heated faster than the heat is taken away by our circulatory system. your eye can therefore be harmed by over heating causing cataracts at a young age. It would take several hundred watts focused in one area to harm you. Of course you would have to be unconscious or have no feeling, because it would feel very similar to a heat lamp focused at you, only stronger. The inverse square law is always in effect, so you don't have to get very far away at all before the dangers are eliminated.

Sounds like another scare tactic spread by someone who didn't know to begin with, or just like to tell BS to other people.

the human eye is about one inch in diameter so a frequency of 110 GHZ would have a wavelength equal to the eye. That bandwidth is currently allocated to Space research Radio astronomy and earth/satellite exploration. And just because it is the same size as the eyeball means nothing. It's isn't absorbed by most any tissue or water.

[KQ6AR]

The UHF 400Mhz range, is the closest to resonance with the human body. & enters the eye easier than other freq's.

[beyondthesidewalks]

:ot:
A full wavelength for 850Mhz is 13.891", nowhere near the size of a bulls testes or mine.

Well, Josh, you caught me and I misspoke. You're right that the wavelength of 900 MHz does not equal the diameter of eyeballs or testes. I had to look up the little training deal that they make us take every year to figure out what it is that makes 900 MHz so dangerous to eyeballs and testes. It's something called SAR (Specific Absorption Rate). Apparently 800/900 MHz have some way of heating eyeballs and testes unrelated to wavelength. That's just the way my brain remembers it. I'm not exactly sure what SAR is and I don't have the time to delve into it. My employer makes me take a 1 hour briefing once a year and I have to sign off that I've had the training/briefing. I don't know if this an OSHA requirement or somethiing the legal dept. is making us do to prevent us from ever coming back and suing the company. They just want us to understand that exposure to 800/900 MHz can be dangerous to our eyes and testes and that it's up to us to mitigate that threat when working in areas where we might be exposed to it. The one issue that the powerpoint presentation brought up was that eyes and testes have very little blood flow to relieve any heating associated with RF energy and that makes them very vulnerable to damage. Sorry if I caused any confusion but I'm man enought to admit that I was wrong.