Are cell phones killing our bees?  I never let my bees use cell
phones.  They are social insects and I have found once I let them have
cell phones it is impossible to control their use.  The charges from
time overruns can bankrupt even the most efficient apiary operation.
Once they learn to use them they become dependent:  They stop
returning to the hive to dance and just phone in the location of their
forage discoveries.  Furthermore, the increased peer-to-peer
communication plays havoc with traditional bee values.  "To heck with
phremones!" they say.  "Chemical communication is passe compared with
digital."  As in many societies, the young are the early adopters,
spending their time text messaging instead of doing their jobs.  In
the end we observe a breakdown in heirarchy and, fatally,
anti-royalist sentiment.  This, then, is the cause of CCD--foolish
notions of independence among the immature, loss of authority of the
elders, breakdown of group cohesion, and collapse of the aristocracy.

Marc Hoffman

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