I've had colleagues carry other insects through airports for study purposes
(with all of the approvals, certs, etc.)   They have had some real problems
out the other end -- but there are lots of stresses traveling on planes, so
I'd hesitate to blame luggage scanning.

As per bees and radiation -- Savannah River labs tested colonies (old
study) in the lab, using gamma rays.  Got not effect, or so they
thought.  When the colonies were returned outdoors, most died quickly.

Keep in mind the difference being radiation (e.g., X-rays) and radioactive
materials (often called radionuclides).  We've sampled colonies near the
nuclear fuel reprocessing plants at the Idaho and Hanford sites,  around a
variety of breeder reactors, near a graphite reactor, and (consulted with
colleagues in Croatia studying post-Chernobyl cycling of radioactive cesium).

Radioactive materials can and do get into beehives -- i.e., radioactive
chromium near a Naval Test Reactor, Cesium in pollen (from sedges) growing
in the cooling ponds of a graphite reactor, Cesium in honey from
1950s-1990s (bottles of honey stored each year in a cellar of a beekeeper
in the Alps), fallout in eastern Montana as a result of atmospheric testing
by the Chinese in the 1970s, military arsenals, etc.

For the most part, these chemicals were in hives (honey, pollen, bees) in
trace amounts, with no APPARENT harm to the bees.  Two of the more
interesting studies were the one tracing the history of nuclear development
using the aforementioned bottles of honey, and a unique cycling story in
Croatia where honey produced from shallow rooted flowers in meadows
returned to background levels of radionuclides in a few years after
Chernobyl, but honey produced from honeydew DID not.  Apparently the
radioactive junk was still in the deeper soils. Each spring, when the
conifers came out of winter, started moving food up from the roots and out
to the new growth (candles), the aphid population explodes in numbers,
chows down on the tender vittles, and secret honeydew that contains
radioactive materials at rather surprising levels.

Jerry

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