EMFs, Solar "Farms", and Honeybees

So there is some discussion in a local-to-me beekeeping group (most are conventional keepers) about EMFs from power lines disrupting honeybees.

Link to the article HERE

It got me thinking about the proliferation of solar 'farms' here in my area of central Massachusetts, not to mention all of the folks with arrays on their rooftops.  How might those contribute to scrambling signals for honeybees, other pollinators, and other critters?

Does anyone with an understanding of all of this have that info?  Is it plausible that solar generators on a large-ish scale could also be contributing to the issue?

I've lived on my property for 11 years.  Always TONS of honeybees and other pollinators from late April through until autumn.  The last 2-3 years?  Almost nothing.  It's weird.

I am bordering a large solar farm, and there have been many, many more within a couple of miles of me.  Just musing here.

Thanks heaps,

Nissa

I believe that EMFs from ANY source mess with how bees navigate. If they can't find the way back to their hive, they die.

The solar panels themselves generate DC current, this means that a bee flying near it should be able to have it as a fixed point and may even be an aid to navigation.

The inverters and main powerlines going from the site are a very different question. The inverter chops the DC field on and off very fast to create the normal 60Hz AC power that eventually comes into your power sockets. (Apologies for the gross over simplification).

If the electromagnetic fields were visible the solar farm would look very different to how it does at the moment.

The solar panel would be like a light in a room. A single panel may be a big or small light depending on the size and the wires coming from it would be a steady glow.
Like a normal light you can work around it, if it's too bright it can be a bit confusing.

The inverter would be like a really fast flashing light, like strobe light. If this is well shielded then it's not a problem, you can't see it flashing but if it's not well shielded, think strobe light.

The powerlines leading away from it will be quite a powerful light that changes between two opposite colours fairly quickly but with a gradual turn on turn off, much less harsh than the strobe but very bright.

Does that help?

James Alun's reply is a VERY good one!
I want to add to it, bees evolved to have as their guidelines the energy off the sun, and the earth's magnetic field. And that's ALL.
Adding all that complication of energy fields is why they can not navigate in the area.

This is on top of all the things humans have already done that stress bees. I've heard a lot of people have noticed a decrease this year, and this could easily be one stressor too much.

There's been a precipitous drop-off here in the last 2-3 years.  Last year, we didn't see even ONE.  I'm on 286 acres, most of it field and forest.  This year, we've seen FOUR.  I mean, it's insane.  Not just honeybees, but other pollinators are in super short supply.  We're usually teeming with them the second week of June when the meadow comes into peak bloom.

We had a HUGE pome bloom this year and the trees should have been covered.  Nope.

It's scary and sad.  It actually feels really lonely without them.  

Jay Angler wrote:This is on top of all the things humans have already done that stress bees. I've heard a lot of people have noticed a decrease this year, and this could easily be one stressor too much.

I don’t think they could be too bad for honey bees, or at least around here.

Here the plastic farms as I call solar farms are almost always located next to transmission lines anyway, so I cannot imagine it would be any worse then what is already here.

We installed a lot of cameras where I work and though the Ef would really take them out but even down inside the generator pits where there is no escaping it from the exciter and stator, we have had no issues at all. We are not  speaking plant but shut down and start up a lot, and the camera have held up well.

I do wonder about the 5g towers though.

On that line of thinking; I thought about getting a tower climber rf detector and seeing how bad it is where I work.

I'm on the other side of this position.

Overwhelmingly the greatest threat to bee species generally, and not just honey bees, is loss of habitat due to modern high intensity agricultural practices. Widespread installations of solar on former agricultural land generally increases available forage for all bee species. The panels are frequently surrounded by meadows that - over time - become rich with wild flowers. They are typically not sprayed with pesticides, unlike agricultural land, and in many cases are managed with light grazing of sheep.

While there is some evidence that bees use electromagnetic signals to aid navigation, it is a tiny contribution to their overall navigation which is based primarily on visual cues. They orientate themselves using fixed objects in their landscape, which they use to build a visual map. Should a bee be deflected off course by some anomaly they circle for a while until they are able to reorientate to known landmarks, then continue with their day. These processes have been demonstrated over and over again by researchers through direct experimentation, and this has been going on since the early days of modern beekeeping when moveable frames were introduced and the waggle dance was identified and understood.

As a beekeeper I would be delighted if a solar farm opened up in range of my colonies. It would expand the available forage for them considerably, and extend the nectar flow both earlier and later through the year (eg dandelions and clover).

As for the specific impact of EMF, there has never - to the best of my knowledge - been a robust demonstration of harm to a colony of honey bees due EMF. It has, again, been tested extensively. Colonies have been placed in strong (stronger than would be experienced in the environment ) EMFs, and continued to thrive. The few experiments I have read that showed negative results were fundamentally flawed. There was one case that went viral a few year ago based on an experiment on just 4 colonies. Any beekeeper can tell you that there is naturally huge variation between colonies (health, honey yield, behaviour etc...) due to genetics and other conditions. You would need hundreds of colonies and many years of results to make any kind of robust comparison.

Short of trustworthy evidence which shows a tangible harm to colonies, I'm going to focus my efforts on the areas where I can make a change: Land use, forage availability, disease resistance etc....

I can't speak to the EMF, as I have no research or experience with it, but I wanted to point out another possible problem the Solar Farms are causing. Most of the solar farms I see getting installed here in Maine are being done so in abandoned fields. Those fields generate a lot of flowers (e.g. bee food). The installation of those panels will compact the soil, kill most of the plants initially and reduce the amount of sunlight for regrowth. I don't know if the EMF causes problems, but filling fields with solar panels will definitely reduce the amount of pollinator food.

Matt McSpadden wrote:I can't speak to the EMF, as I have no research or experience with it, but I wanted to point out another possible problem the Solar Farms are causing. Most of the solar farms I see getting installed here in Maine are being done so in abandoned fields. Those fields generate a lot of flowers (e.g. bee food). The installation of those panels will compact the soil, kill most of the plants initially and reduce the amount of sunlight for regrowth. I don't know if the EMF causes problems, but filling fields with solar panels will definitely reduce the amount of pollinator food.

This is one of those "local variations matter" issues. Here solar panels are generally being installed on actively used, but marginal quality, farm land. Taking it out of active agriculture generally increases biodiversity and bee forage opportunities. I can see where converting abandoned land could be detrimental.

The buzz about "dirty electricity" has a kernel of truth to it, but it has really been blown out of proportion in recent years (most often by people who want to sell you something). I also wonder how much money the chemical manufacturers have pumped into scaremongering about electricity, wifi, and other possible causes of honeybee stress in recent years. There is a well-established funding stream from fossil energy companies to the propaganda efforts that are popping up everywhere a renewable energy project gets proposed. I smell something and it's not flowers.

Yes, smaller consumer-grade inverters are problematic with their RF emissions. Solar farms use big, grunty, industrial pure sine wave inverters and resonant filters, and they don't have that issue. Grid operators won't let a generating entity interconnect with them if they can't guarantee clean power with stable frequency.

Same goes for a lot of the scary stuff you may hear about 5G. One of the advantages of this technology is that it relies on lower-power transceivers where possible by getting coverage via greater numbers instead of boosting strength at a main tower. So if 5G comes into your area and eventually displaces the older tech, the overall emissions footprint can actually go down. Of course, it will be many years before the 4G towers get switched off, so don't hold your breath.

When looking into these questions, sometimes it really pays to ask an engineer first.