I did some digging. Could this be your issue? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11609474/mysql-always-returning-bit-values-as-blank

hmm, i fairly confident that the issue is not php, mysql or my tables.

i am using phpmyadmin to access this db and i can select/update the BIT field using it without any problem

i am obviously missing something

Well that depends. We do not know what phpmyadmin is doing behind the scenes so it isn't safe to assume that just because it works in phpmyadmin it will work out of the box in php. Take a look at the answer provided on that stackoverflow page. Also http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/bit-field-literals.html. All I am saying is that you should run that simple test first. Maybe it doesn't work but at least try every possible solution.

UPDATE: Here are some more references: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8778906/fetching-bit-field-with-mysql-query, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15106985/mysql-select-bit1-shows-as-string3