Abstract
The present investigation was carried out at HREC, Dhakrani, Dehradun during August-December, 2010. For the experiment three treatments, i) Colonies below the tower, ii) Colonies equipped with cell phone and iii) Colonies without cell phone were taken into consideration. To quantify the effect of electromagnetic radiation (EMR), all the treatments having different radiation level were maintained. It was observed that maximum brood area was found in control colonies (560.36 cm2) followed by the colonies kept near the tower 537.85 cm2 and lowest brood area (534.81 cm2) was observed in the colonies equipped with cell phone. The average honey production was found to be highest (14.43 kg/hives) in the colonies placed near the tower followed by cell phone equipped colonies (13.76 kg/hive), while control colonies produced 12.80 kg/hive honey in first harvesting. There was no remarkable change in the nectar and pollen gathering behaviour of foragers and sufficient pollen and nectar stored in the colonies during the course of study. Therefore, in the light of above findings conclusion can be drawn that there is no apparent effect of EMR on brooding, honey production and foraging behaviour of Apis mellifera colonies. Key words: Electromagnetic radiations, GSM 900 cell phone, behaviour, brood, Apis mellifera.
Highlights
Honeybees have become essential component for the success of high tech agriculture
Data recorded (Table 1) at weekly interval clearly implies that brood area was found maximum (636.00 cm2) in the colonies maintained with cell phone on 10th September, 2010, whereas in control colonies the brood area was
As far as the brood areas in respect of date of observation is concerned, the maximum mean brood area 595.26 cm2 was found on 10th September, 2010 and minimum brood area 495.73 cm2 was observed on 15th October, 2010, while brood areas pertaining to various treatments, the maximum 560.36 cm2 was noticed in control colonies followed by the colonies kept near the tower where average brood area was 537.85
Summary
Honeybees have become essential component for the success of high tech agriculture. The economical role of honeybees in worldwide pollination has been statistically valued to be around 153 billion Euros in the year 2005(Gallai et al, 2009). Honeybees possess magnetite crystals in their fat body cells and they present magnetic remanence (Gould et al, 1978; Keim et al, 2002). These magnetite structures are active parts of the magneto-reception system in honeybees (Hsu and Li, 1994; Hsu et al., 2007). Honeybees can be trained to respond to very small changes in the constant local geomagnetic field intensity (Walker and Bitterman, 1989a). They can communicate through chemical and acoustical means (Winston, 1991; Tautz, 2008). A pervasive media report asserted that cellular phones were a possible cause of honey bee colony collapse disorder in April, 2007
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