>Then Honey itself is 2nd only to Pollen as an indicator as to what is
dirt in our environment amd it all gets into the bees food chain.
>
 
Sorry, but the ranking part of this statement is not correct.  We have
spent 22 years looking at "dirt" in our environment with honey bees.  This
is a service that bees can provide.  Those of you in the U.S. may have
seen a newspaper article that appeared in the Sunday papers a week ago -
Army Enlist Bees to Monitor Chemicals (or some version of that title).
 
Bees have been used for this purpose in England, Europe, and the U.S. In
Canada, bees were pressed into service prospecting for precious metals.
 
The good news is that little of the environmental junk gets into honey!
But, that only applies to sources outside the hive.  Chemicals used inside
the hive can go right into the honey or wax - especially those in liquid
or volatile forms.
 
Apistan is designed to control release - squirting cotton balls or dunking
cardboard is not the same.
 
Many of the studies using bees as monitors have only looked at a few
chemicals or at one hive component (honey, wax, pollen).  We have looked
at almost all forms and kinds of chemicals, by all routes of entry, and at
all parts of the colony and hive.  Forager bees,nurse bees, pupae, wax,
honey, pollen - all have been investigated.
 
Ok, now for our summary.  The main indicator is not pollen, wax, or honey
- it is the forager bee returning to the hive.  And contrary to
expectations, bees pick up lots of pollutants directly from the air.
Water is another source.  Pollen can be a route of entry into the hive,
but nectar is usually the least important route of entry.  Chemicals that
occur as gases concentrate in field bees (at least double the level of
hive bees (again, industrial gases, this does not apply to hive
fumigants).  Particulate borne chemicals pass rapidly from forager bees
throughout the hive - nurse bees, bee bread, etc.
 
The second ranked indicator (for volatile chemicals) is the air inside the
hive box. For metals and other chemicals that stick to dust particles I
would rank pollen as the second most useful indicator.  In addition, by
sampling bees and pollen, we can get some idea of what the source might
be.
 
 
Wax ranks a distant third for environmental monitoring.  It is a sink for
lots of things - but it does not always get worse through time.  Junk
builds up in wax, until the bees tear down the cells and rebuild.  Then
the levels drop.  We see the highest wax residues during early spring, the
lowest in mid-summer. Because one does not know when the wax became
contaminated (could be as much as 8-10 years ago or yesterday), old wax is
not very useful.  Putting strips into the hive and letting the bee draw it
out provides a means of aging the wax.
 
Propolis is useful for some specific chemicals, but it is a more difficult
material to analyze.
 
Honey has been shown to be useful - for example, Roger Morse did some
honey work years ago.  But, compare honey to other materials or bees and
one gets a different answer.  For example, metals usually occur at levels
10-100 times higher in pollen and bees than in honey.
 
Some things do go into the nectar and honey.  Spray a flower with
organophosphate insecticides, and you will see it in honey.  Tritium also
appears in honey (but only at very unusual sites like federal burial sites
for radioactive materials).
 
However, compared to other colony and hive components, we continue to be
amazed at how "clean" honey remains.  However, that does not mean that
chemicals put inside the hive don't get into honey.  They do!  Also, use a
zinc coated extracter, and I will find iron and zinc in your honey.  My
bias - although almost any environmental polluatant can be found in trace
amounts in anything from bees to us, honey remains as clean or cleaner
than other food products.  In our general sampling, we have not found any
environmental chemicals in honey at levels high enough to threaten human
health.  We can't say the same for pollen.  We have found radioactive
pollen near nuclear test facilities (rare and in low levels), lots of
lead, arsenic, cadmium, and other toxic metals near smelters and chemical
plants, and a grab bag of other junk.  Bottom line, don't collect pollen
in industrial zones.
 
Does this means we shouldn't eat honey or pollen.  No!  They are good
products, amazing so.  But, beekeepers have to treat their product with
care. The highest levels of foreign chemicals in bee products are almost
always a result of chemicals used by beekeepers or as a consequence of
contamination introduced while handling and processing the product.
 
So much for my soap-box.  Hope this helps clarify some issues.
 
Jerry Bromenshenk
The Unviversity of Montana-Missoula
http://grizzly.umt.edu/biology/bees
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