(TRUNEWS) New research shows the problem with the declining bee population may be due to increased cell phone usage.

Daniel Favre, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has found the signals cause honeybees to become disoriented, leading to their deaths.  He discovered that bees made 10 times more noise when there was a cell phone in use nearby, according to Digital Trends.

The noise, called “worker piping” is supposed to serve as a signal for the bees to leave the hive.  When it is caused by cell phone signals, the bees just stay confused.

“Worker piping in a bee colony is not frequent, and when it occurs in a colony, that is not in a swarming process, no more than two bees are simultaneously active…The induction of honeybee worker piping by the electromagnetic fields of mobile phones might have dramatic consequences in terms of colony losses due to unexpected swarming,” said the report.

Since honeybees pollinate 70 percent of the crops on the planet, the problem is serious.  Last year, beekeepers lost 42 percent of their colonies.

But, ironically, there is a new system for managing bees.  A group of engineering students in Poland have developed a wireless device which can keep tabs on temperature, humidity and motion.

“All these data are transmitted to an external data server, where we can analyze them and in the case of any threats they can be immediately and directly sent to the beekeeper’s phone,” said student Wojceich Sojka, designer of “Maja”.

The students had hoped to stop the bee decline through this technology, believing “climate change” and pesticides are the causes of the population decline. The data could be used to give researchers information on Colony Collapse Disorder, where bees disappear from the hive.