Interference Free Foraging Mobility -
a Workshop at FoAM, December 10th-12th 2010.
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Although urban environments with their supposedly low pesticide levels provide beneficial habitats for honeybees, electromagnetic field concentrations that prevail in the city can have adverse effects on bees.
Honeybees are extremely sensitive to magnetic fields and field variations. With this sensitivity they orient themselves, find their nectar and get back home. Anthropogenic electro/magnetic fields can disturb the bees' orientation, navigation and communication, which makes the city a difficult environment for Apis Mellifera.
To assist city bees with this issue, participants of the workshop started mapping the City of Brussels for interference free foraging.
Detectors for both high and low electromagnetic frequencies are used to steer through gradients of signal intensity, exploring the possibility of making the "invisible" fields and their subtle changes over time and space both visible and audible (please check here).
Detailed contour maps can be constructed during city walks, visualizing the situation across diverse city locales, offering a view of "spectral ecologies" and their relation to visible architecture and habitats.
Splinterfields Workshop on Electromagnetickal Art
was organized and offered by FoAM.
Martin Howse and Christina Stadlbauer
More pictures can be found here.
The EuropeanUnion recognizes the importance of the protection of insects and honeybees in particular and has picked up the topic of "adverse effects of radiation on bees".
A member of Parliament has posed questions to the European Commission on the
effects of mobile phone transmitter masts on the behaviour and lifecycle of bees and other insects
and
what steps are being taken to ensure that bees are protected from the adverse effects of radiation.
Questions and answers of the Commission, once they are ready, are posted here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2011-001446+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN
an article on the topic:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1385907/Why-mobile-phone-ring-make-bees-buzz-Insects-infuriated-handset-signals.html