'Our mistreatment of bees leads to their decline'
“Bees: Tech to the rescue” reminded me how engineers must keep an eye on the bigger picture or risk being too narrow-minded to be of any benefit to society (PE May).
The article glosses over the important points, namely human beings’ ‘mining’ of bees for their precious resource – honey. Our unsympathetic farming of bees has brought about a weakening of the species. Termed colony collapse disorder, it is merely nature moving towards something more appealing, like battery hens escaping the farm (if their wings hadn’t been clipped). Ask sustainable beekeepers – who don’t steal all their bees’ honey, but act in the bees’ interests as well as satisfying their sweet tooth – how many of their colonies have collapsed. There is no such problem. When you steal all of your bees’ food and replace it with sugar syrup, don’t be surprised if they become ill, infested, disorientated, and ultimately scarce.
Engineers miss the point and rush headlong into action. While replacing bees with drones makes for an interesting piece of journalism, the notion is ridiculous. Nature is a mighty force and all of the engineers in the world working all day and night couldn’t replace it.
Engineers have become blinded by the science. They invent solutions to problems that don’t exist, or that humanity caused in the first place. Rather than focusing on saving bees, the planet, or anything else, perhaps engineers might consider ways to look after themselves, before they become so laughably impotent that as a species they face extinction.
Andrew Goodman, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Navigation system disrupted
Parizad Mangi’s article on the decline in bee populations and attempts to produce robotic replacements made fascinating and rather sobering reading (“Bees: Tech to the rescue,” PE May).
One factor in the decline was not mentioned: the effect of electromagnetic radiation from communications systems such as cellphones. According to published papers, it was demonstrated that radiation from a cellphone influences the behaviour and physiology of honeybees. Bees are affected by electromagnetic radiation because their abdomens contain magnetite granules which assist them in their orientation flight. Moreover, the abdominal ‘skin’ of bees has semiconductor functionalities.
The exponential growth in communications radiation disrupts bees’ navigation, and can result in them failing to return to the hive, with ultimate dissolution of the colony. This is too inconvenient a truth for the communications industry to accept, indeed for the whole of society, so we are reduced to attempts to replace nature with mechanical trees and robotic bees.
Tom White, Winchester, Hampshire
Engineering is a team effort
Discomfort with common usage of the term ‘engineer’ outside our honourable profession continues. Perhaps it is time for a change in approach to this battle with common language usage that cannot be won?
Cited examples of the misuse (sic?) of the term ‘engineer’ are usually applied to skilled, committed front-line staff, that are vital to society’s development and application of technology. Such individuals may not be chartered professional engineers, but they are vital members of teams delivering the benefits to society of engineering. The engineers repairing overhead power supplies after storms do a vital and skilled job (Letters, PE May). The foot-plate engineers on steam locomotives were critical to railways. The heating engineer installing a hospital hot-water system is equally vital.
As an experienced membership interviewer, from the small but significant sample of applicants for membership of all categories, the strongest applicants often have careers based in early front-line, hands-on practical experience. I am particularly pleased to see recent success in increasing IEng membership of the IMechE. With the increase in apprenticeships, I welcome the recognition that many of the best and more sought-after schemes are ‘engineering apprenticeships’, confident that these will ensure a supply of vital skills and, longer term, world-class professional engineers.
As colleagues and potential future members, I am pleased and proud to share the title ‘engineer’ with young apprentices, skilled front-line engineers and other members of the broad community committed to engineering.
Tom Osorio, Richmond, North Yorkshire
Nasa’s debt to engineers
All my professional life I have been trying to establish the professional image engineers deserve and that which set me on this unrewarding path was the first moon-landing, Apollo 11. A technician at the college where I lectured set up a short-wave receiver to get direct transmissions from Nasa at Houston before the BBC had adulterated them. There were discrepancies between Houston’s output and Auntie’s but the most damaging of them concerned engineers.
The moon project was a strange mixture of engineering and politics with little or no relevance to science, apart from bringing back some rocks. I asked a studio manager why Auntie had consistently substituted ‘scientist’ in BBC reports for every ‘engineer’ in Houston’s version of events. The manager said that “it all sounded a bit too clever and advanced to be engineering”!
The fight continues. Cast off those dirty overalls – engineers of the world unite.
L W B Augarde, Morden, Surrey
Boost careers advice funding
Nicola Bagshawe does a great service to the profession as a Stem ambassador (Letters, PE May). Her choice of language concerns me, however: is it reasonable for an engineer to be saying teachers should be trained better? Would we feel comfortable saying that about the medical or legal professions? Professional courtesy is owed here.
As a chartered engineer, currently teaching high-school physics, I am working hard to promote Stem careers. All of my colleagues are promoting interest in our subjects and the careers they could lead to.
However, we are teachers, not careers advisers, and even those of us with industrial experience will not necessarily have a broad knowledge of the opportunities in Stem subjects. What we really need is a properly funded careers advice service in schools.
Having said this, perhaps the institutions might consider developing a CPD offering for schools, to assist the teachers in developing their knowledge of Stem careers?
Richard Fortescue, Weymouth, Dorset
Bringing flight data to earth
Robert Cusins suggests that it should be possible for an aircraft’s black box data to be transmitted to a ground receiving station, such as when triggered by the crew in an emergency, thus allowing the plane’s position to be known (Letters, PE April).
Such a system exists, developed by the Canadian company FLYHT Aerospace Solutions. It can transmit data to its ground-based server, and on to customer-specified end points. It has been installed on a number of Airbus aircraft, and it is to be hoped that Boeing will soon make it an option on new planes.
James White, Vancouver, Canada
Lost voice
“Hunt is on for 3m missing members” reads the News headline (PE April). The article goes on to describe the review of professional engineering carried out by John Uff.
In response, the IMechE is working with other major institutions to “draw together engineering policy to provide a strong, coherent voice in areas of strategic importance”.
What has the Engineering Council, set up in 1981, been doing all these years? Not a lot, not even in its main function as “the regulatory body for the profession”.
The profession could have progressed further and quicker if the council had made more proactive use of the last 30-plus years. And maybe we wouldn’t have lost the 3 million potential members we are now seeking.
Bryan Burton, Elloughton, East Yorkshire
Disastrous record
In your article on the de Havilland museum (Worth a detour, PE April), I noted that the Sea Vixen (DH110) “became the first British aircraft to exceed the speed of sound,” and had a quick look at Google. It appears this speed was in a dive. Well, a bit easier to do, then.
I then read that 55 out of 145 DH110s were wrecked, with 30 fatal crashes.
I made a balsa model of the DH110, so this information was a bit of a shock.
Jack Moore, Sorrento, Western Australia
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