Power lines may mess with honeybees’ behavior and ability to learn

Here's the report: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/power-lines-may-mess-with-honeybees-learning-behavior

Here's the gritty:

In the new study, bees were subjected for 17 hours  — the amount of time they would spend overnight in a hive — to either 100 µT or 1,000 µT, a typical EMF level within a meter of the transmission line. The bees were then put through several behavioral and learning tests.

In one test, bees were familiarized with a floral smell. The bees were then put through five trials in which they were exposed to the smell for several seconds before experiencing an electric shock. The researchers measured how many trials it took the bees to learn to defensively extend their stingers in response to the smell instead of the stimulus.

“It’s basically Pavlov’s dogs with bees,” Shepherd says. At both EMF levels, exposed honeybees were slower than unexposed bees in learning to associate the smell with the shock. Only a third of the exposed bees learned to do it after the five trials, compared with half of the unexposed bees. Exposed bees also were more likely than unexposed bees to exhibit aggressive behavior, such as biting or attempting to sting other bees.

Hmmm... 17 hours is one helluva long night, and I don't know of any hives within one metre of a power line.