'Mobile phone signals kill bees' - Swiss research team

Coinciding with today's iOS release of Vivid's line-drawing puzzler Bee Farm comes news that your mobile phone may be to blame for the decline in bee numbers.

According to a Swiss research team, which has conducted 83 experiments no less, mobile phone calls cause bees to leave their hives, become disoriented, and die.

An article published in the bee journal Apidolgie states that the Swiss researchers measured the bees' reactions to a mobile phone in several states, e.g. during a call or in standby mode.

During a call, the honey makers became agitated and began producing a noise known as the 'working piping signal', which caused the bees to swarm. Disoriented, the colony soon died.

Fortunately, these results were not replicated when the mobile was switched off.