Value chain · CLM-1147
In plain terms
The 1980 programme's experiments on bees, at strengths from the edge of a rectenna to about twice its centre, found nothing: eggs hatched, adults found their way home, a colony raised brood for a month under the edge-of-rectenna level, and foragers flew straight into fields nearly twice as strong as the beam centre to get at sugar water.
The claim as recorded
The 1980 DOE honey-bee programme, "the first invertebrates to be tested" for the SPS environmental assessment, exposed Apis mellifera to 2.45 GHz continuous wave at densities "ranged from low levels of energy anticipated at rectennal edges (1 mw/cm2) to approximately twice" (50 mw/cm2) "the levels projected at the rectennal center (23 mw/cm2)", for "30 minutes to 28 days, which exceed one life cycle", and reports that brood development, teratology, adult survival, longevity, orientation, navigation and memory after 30 minutes at 3-50 mw/cm2, confined longevity after 24 hours at 3-50, a colony's thermoregulation, foraging, brood rearing and social interaction over 28 days at 1 mw/cm2, and free foragers' entry into 5-40 mw/cm2 fields were all normal: "No evidence has been found to suggest that 2.45 GHz continuous wave microwaves at selected power densities from 1-50 mw/cm2 have biological effects on honey bees".
Evidence behind this: T3-DOE contractor report with named authors and a stated method, each study written as a journal manuscript; the finding is a null across six experiments, with the statistics stated per study.
Scope and limits
A NULL RESULT ON ONE SPECIES IN CHAMBERS: no dose-response, no threshold, no field exposure at a rectenna, continuous wave only, 2.45 GHz only, and the programme itself says "other species must be tested as an additional safeguard" (CLM-1153). Chamber densities are platform means with a 16 per cent one-sigma nonuniformity (CLM-1153). Per-study statistics and their caveats are in CLM-1148 to CLM-1152.
What it assumes
The reference system's 23 mW/cm2 centre and 1 mW/cm2 edge, as the report states them.
Where it comes from
PDF 12 / printed 2 (render read): "The evaluation of possible biological effects of SPS microwaves on airborne biota within and near the rectennae has high priority in the the SPS environmental assessment program" (normalised, the doubled "the" is the page's); "Honey bees, the first invertebrates to be tested" (normalised); "Exposure power densities ranged from low levels of energy anticipated at rectennal edges (1 mw/cm2) to approximately twice" (normalised) 50 mw/cm2 "the levels projected at the rectennal center (23 mw/cm2)" (normalised); "Exposure times were 30 minutes to 28 days, which exceed one life cycle" (normalised); "No evidence has been found to suggest that 2.45 GHz continuous wave microwaves at selected power densities from 1-50 mw/cm2 have biological effects on honey bees" (normalised). PDF 11 / printed 1: "Posttreatment brood development was normal and teratological effects were not detected at exposures of 3-50 mw/cm2 for 30 minutes"; "Post-treatment survival, longevity, orientation, navigation, and memory of adult bees were also normal after exposures of 3-50 mw/cm2 for 30 minutes"; "Post-treatment longevity of confined bees in the laboratory was normal after exposures of 3-50 mw/cm2 for 24 hours"; "Thermoregulation of brood nest, foraging activity, brood rearing, and social interaction were not affected by chronic exposure to 1 mw/cm2 during 28 days"; "the frequency of entry and duration of activity of unrestrained, foraging adult bees was identical in microwave-exposed (5-40 mw/cm2) areas versus control areas" (all normalised). PDF 40 / printed 31: "Each SPS could produce approximately 5 Gigawatts" (normalised); "at maximal power densities of 23 mw/cm2 would" (raw). Recomputed: 23 mW/cm2 = 230 W/m2; 1 mW/cm2 = 10 W/m2; 50 / 23 = 2.2.
Basis: mW/cm2 continuous wave at 2.45 GHz (1 mW/cm2 = 10 W/m2); minutes, hours, days of exposure
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1147
CLM-1147, Energy Aperture, as of 1980-12.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-537
- CLM-1148Bee eggs, grubs and pupae zapped for half an hour at up to twice the beam-centre strength grew into normal adults at the same rate as...CLM-1149One hive lived for four weeks, a full brood cycle, under the beam strength expected at the edge of a receiving station, and behaved like...CLM-1150Six thousand bees took part, 2,500 of them dosed, and were let go a hundred metres from home; the dosed ones found their hive as often as...CLM-1151Bees kept a full day at up to twice the beam-centre strength (fifty times the beam-edge level), alone or huddled, ate and lived afterwards...CLM-1152Bees flew four hundred metres to a sugar dish sitting in a microwave field nearly twice the beam-centre strength, went in without...CLM-1153The people who ran the bee tests said so themselves: one species, in boxes whose field strength wandered by a third across the tray, with...