Effects of ground transport on the presence of heavy metals in selected honeybee products.

ABSTRACT

Honeybees are insects very sensitive to environmental pollution and at the same time very good indicators of the pollution levels for certain types of pollutants. The morphology and ethology of these insects make them perfect vectors for dust and substances, including heavy metals produced by anthropic activities or naturally generated and deposited on foraged flora. When bees are raised to produce foods such as honey and pollen, they can easily transfer pollutants collected from contaminated flower affecting the quality of these products. However, depending on geographical location of the apiaries and their distance from pollution sources, the risk to contaminate bee products can be higher or lower requiring deep investigations. In this study, two apiaries were built near ground transport infrastructures and used as monitoring stations for investigating heavy metal presence in beehive products such as bee wax, pollen, and honey. Another apiary was placed between these two locations at a distance of 500 m from each one and used as central node to asses possible diffusion trends. Parallel, air quality was monitored in the proximity of each apiary to verify the air pollution of the environments close to these sites. The results of the study suggest that the presence of the highway and the train station affected the levels of heavy metal presence in the apiary products. Air quality near apiaries was also negatively affected by ground transport, especially in proximity of the highway. Wax resulted significantly more polluted in the apiary close to train station with elements such as Al, Zn, and Ni, while honey and pollen were significantly more polluted in the proximity of the highway with elements such as Al, Fe, Cu, and Zn. Honey was the product suffering less the contamination by heavy metals while pollen was the worse. In conclusion, the presence of transportation nodes determined a higher accumulation of heavy metals in beehive products respect the apiary placed in between, suggesting to pay particular attention in the site selection for the placement of apiaries to protect both bees and human health.