Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure of Western Honey Bees

Arno Thielens,Leen Verloock,Luc Martens,Wout Joseph,Mark K Greco

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-56948-0

Abstract

Radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) can be absorbed in all living organisms, including Western Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera). This is an ecologically and economically important global insect species that is continuously exposed to environmental RF-EMFs. This exposure is studied numerically and experimentally in this manuscript. To this aim, numerical simulations using honey bee models, obtained using micro-CT scanning, were implemented to determine RF absorbed power as a function of frequency in the 0.6 to 120 GHz range. Five different models of honey bees were obtained and simulated: two workers, a drone, a larva, and a queen. The simulations were combined with in-situ measurements of environmental RF-EMF exposure near beehives in Belgium in order to estimate realistic exposure and absorbed power values for honey bees. Our analysis shows that a relatively small shift of 10% of environmental incident power density from frequencies below 3 GHz to higher frequencies will lead to a relative increase in absorbed power of a factor higher than 3.

Highlights

Wireless communication is a widespread and growing technology
Radio-frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-electromagnetic fields (EMFs)) exposure measurements were executed near five bee hives in Belgium, in order to quantify the real exposure of such honey bees
Note that the total RF-EMF absorbed power in the insect scales both with the internal electric field strength and the conductivity

Summary

Introduction

Wireless communication is a widespread and growing technology. Most of the wireless networks and personal devices operate using Radio-Frequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (EMFs). The main conclusions from the aforementioned studies are that (i) RF EMFs can be absorbed and can cause dielectric heating in insects and (ii) this absorption of RF-EMFs is frequency dependent This frequency dependency is important since 5th generation (5 G) networks are expected to partially operate at higher frequencies (up to 300 GHz)[12,13]. The aims of this study were to numerically evaluate RF-EMF absorption in western honey bees and validate the frequency dependency of this absorption during various developmental stages and experimentally quantify real-life exposure of bees To this aim, numerical simulations were executed to determine the absorption of RF-EMFs in five different honey bee models: a larva, a queen, two workers, and one drone, obtained using micro-CT imaging. These measured values were used to rescale the numerical simulations in order to quantify real honey bee absorption and assess a potential change in absorption in case a shift in operation frequencies in future telecommunication networks would occur

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