Jim

You know as well as I that a couple of samples don't constitute a basis for generalizations.  I do agree that the good news is that levels of chemicals and biologicals in honey usually tend to be an order of magnitude lower than those in pollen or bees.  That's the good news.  

As per where's the data, start with Honey Bees: Estimating the Environmental Impact of Chemicals.  James Devillers and Minh-Ha Pham-Deleque, Taylor and Francis, London and New York.
332 pages.  Only problem, the editors did not share the chapters amongst the authors before publication, so each group drew their own opinions based on their own localized (often country level, but still local) sampling.  After the book came out, we (the authors) talked to each other, and I think we all agreed that some of the seemingly contradictory conclusions would have been adjusted if we had seen the other's data.  Nonetheless, this is a good starting point.  We found over 200 volatile and semi-volatile chemicals inside beehives (some natural, some industrial, some military), and we list them including CAS numbers.  Other chapters in this book address Cesium in French Honey, transfer of radionuclides and selected elements into honey in Croatia, typology of French honeys based on concentrations of metallic and non-metallic elements, monitoring of environmental pollution in Italy using bees, bees as indicators of radionuclide contamination, impacts of agri-chemicals on non-Apis bees, with other chapters on effects of GMOs, Insect-Resistant Transgenic crops, PERS testing, imidacloprid, and even phytopathogenic microorganisms.

I've my name as a co-author on two chapters, one on organics and one on monitoring radioactive materials and selected elements in honey in Croatia.   The Italians credit our work as the model for theirs.  If you want to see effects on bees of urban environments, see my Science 1985 paper regarding monitoring in the Puget Sound area.  When you've finished these, I can provide lists of technical reports published by EPA, DoD, DOE, plus four more books.  Also, we'll have a publication out this fall that shows increasing chemical diversity in pollen from rural to suburban environments on a two-state level.  Jerry

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