Value chain · CLM-1148
In plain terms
Bee 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 unexposed ones; the one pattern in the egg numbers, treated slightly below sham at every level including zero, the authors trace to which shelf the combs sat on afterwards.
The claim as recorded
Honey-bee eggs, larvae and pupae exposed for 30 minutes at 0, 3, 6, 9, 25 and 50 mw/cm2 (2.45 GHz CW) survived to adult emergence at rates not significantly different from sham: eggs 50.7 against 74.5 per cent at 0, 31.4 / 35.7 at 3, 44.5 / 49.0 at 6, 42.6 / 46.7 at 9, 37.5 / 37.9 at 25 and 45.6 / 47.1 at 50 (Table 4.1), larvae 76-92 per cent and pupae 88-99 per cent in every treated row (Tables 4.2-4.3); "Emergence of adult bees for all treatment groups occurred during the normal time span and no teratological effects were detected", "Overall, no statistically significant differences were found in this study for any of the treatments"; the authors attribute the eggs' "consistently lower level of survival in the microwave exposure groups at 10 and 20 days" to microwave frames having been "placed inadvertently in the bottom chamber four times rather than the usual three, thereby causing higher survival of sham groups".
Evidence behind this: T3-one of the six studies, a 6 x 6 Latin square on 216 frames of brood with the authors' own confound stated on the page.
Scope and limits
THE EGG-STAGE PATTERN IS EXPLAINED BY THE AUTHORS, NOT TESTED: the four-times-rather-than-three placement, over six replications (Table 4.1 note b), is their reconstruction, and the zero-power row's 24-point gap with S.D. 18.8 against 1.9 is the widest in the table. Standard deviations of 12-33 points on six replicates make a 10-point effect undetectable by this design. 30-minute exposures only; brood in comb, not in a hive.
What it assumes
The 0.10 significance level and the inverse-sine transformation the authors used (Table 4.1 note a).
Where it comes from
PDF 74 / printed 67, Table 4.1 (crop read): 20-day adult-emergence means, microwave / sham, 0 mw/cm2 50.7 (S.D. 18.8) / 74.5 (1.9); 3, 31.4 (25.5) / 35.7 (12.0); 6, 44.5 (18.0) / 49.0 (19.9); 9, 42.6 (17.4) / 46.7 (32.3); 25, 37.5 (15.4) / 37.9 (20.1); 50, 45.6 (18.0) / 47.1 (17.4). PDF 76-77 / printed 69-70, Tables 4.2 and 4.3 (layer): larval adult emergence 78.2 / 83.1, 91.8 / 85.3, 76.0 / 95.3, 76.7 / 77.3, 86.8 / 83.1, 80.6 / 79.6; pupal 98.3 / 90.3, 92.6 / 98.1, 98.0 / 91.2, 99.4 / 95.1, 99.0 / 94.8, 88.5 / 91.5. PDF 73 / printed 66: "The survival of a control group of brood that was reared within a nursery colony and never exposed within either chamber was 58.7%" (normalised). PDF 75 / printed 68: "The consistently lower level of survival in the microwave exposure groups at 10 and 20 days post-treatment may be accounted for as follows" (normalised); "the microwave-treated frames were placed inadvertently in the bottom chamber four times rather than the usual three, thereby causing higher survival of sham groups" (normalised); "Emergence of adult bees for all treatment groups occurred during the normal time span and no teratological effects were detected" (normalised); "Overall, no statistically significant differences were found in this study for any of the treatments" (normalised); exposures between 3 and 50 mw/cm2 "have no apparent effect on the immature stages of the honey bee" (normalised). Recomputed: treated below sham in all six egg rows, including the zero-power row (50.7 against 74.5), so the pattern is present with the microwaves off; the two highest densities show the smallest gaps (0.4 and 1.5 points); the comparisons are at the 0.10 level (PDF 73 for eggs, PDF 75 for larvae and pupae).
Basis: per cent survival of eggs, larvae and pupae to adult emergence after 30 min at 0, 3, 6, 9, 25 and 50 mW/cm2 CW, microwave against sham
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1148
CLM-1148, 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-1147The 1980 programme's experiments on bees, at strengths from the edge of a rectenna to about twice its centre, found nothing: eggs hatched...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...