I know I've said this before. I pioneered use of honey bee colonies for landscape level monitoring of pollution by EPA back in the 70s. Everything comes back to the hive - either the bees carry it back with food resources, propolis, and water, or they inhale the gases, and then there is the direct movement in and out due to the ventilation of the hive. Gaseous, particulate, water, all comes in. Added to this is that bees are electrostactically charged - just like modern dust mops.
Once in the hive, chemicals are shared amongst the bees, partition into wax, and can persist in wax for long periods - obviously the degree to which wax accumulate, how long it holds, etc. depends on the nature of the chemical.
The crude coming into the hive is not limited to pesticides and agricultural chemicals. Heavy metals, trace elements, volatiles and semi-volatiles, industrial, urban, even radioactive materials, all get into the hive. Many at very low levels, but each hive carries a finger-print history of its exposures. And for migratory beekeepers and those in urban areas, the pesticides and agrichemicals are only a small portion of what's in the hive, it's contents, and its atmosphere. We typically find over 200 volatiles and semi-volatiles in the hive atmosphere, mostly reflective of traffic, heavy industry, urban sources such as emitted by dry cleaners and auto repair shops, to name a few.
Technically, these is no such thing as organic honey - even in the remotest areas of Montana, far from any urban or industrial facilities, long before the coal fired power plants - we found break-down products of gasoline and diesel, traces of industrial solvents and degreasers, inorganic elements, some of which are toxic such as Fl (from water from artesian wells) and selenium from native plants, as well as radionuclides from the Chinese atmospheric testing (70s).
What's in a hive varies by location, year; but it's a constantly changing soup. Bad news, particulate contaminants are commonly found adhering to pollen grains. Good news, overall, honey stays remarkedly clean, but it's never free of contaminants. So, I madden the organic crowd when I point out that the beehive is the collector of everything in its surroundings, and bees fly 2 miles easily, so just because the field next to the hive is organic; remember the bees aren't constrained by fence lines. Finally, in the 70s and now with the Permaculture crowd, there's a push to turn cheap, discarded, waste lands into sustainable, organic farms. So I've found over the years that these folks ignore the history of the site, but the bees share in what's left in the soil, water, etc.
I can find areas in MT that are 20-30 miles from another town, miles from another ranch. Their honey may be cleaner, but long-range transport of pollutants in the air, even global, still exposes bees. Now, you can argue the same for the plants. It's where you draw the lines of the definition. Still, plants are place bound, don't move much. Bees on the other hand aren't on a leash.
J.J. Bromenshenk
Bee Alert
Missoula, Mt
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
