{"id":1137,"date":"2010-06-29T10:14:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-29T14:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2010-06-29T10:22:03","modified_gmt":"2010-06-29T14:22:03","slug":"the-bees-have-it-they-monitor-the-air-around-german-airports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=1137","title":{"rendered":"The Bees Have It: They Monitor the Air Around German Airports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by Tanya Mohn, NEW YORK TIMES, June 28, 2010<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/image9.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px\" title=\"image\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/image_thumb9.png\" width=\"223\" height=\"117\" \/><\/a> Airports in Germany have come up with an unusual approach to monitoring air quality. The D\u00fcsseldorf International Airport and seven other airports are using bees as \u201cbiodetectives,\u201d their honey regularly tested for toxins.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAir quality at and around the airport is excellent,\u201d said Peter Nengelken, the airport\u2019s community liaison. The first batch of this year\u2019s harvested honey from some 200,000 bees was tested in early June, he said, and indicated that toxins were far below official limits, consistent with results since 2006 when the airport began working with bees.<\/p>\n<p>Beekeepers from the local neighborhood club keep the bees. The honey, \u201cD\u00fcsseldorf Natural,\u201d is bottled and given away as gifts.<\/p>\n<p>Biomonitoring, or the use of living organisms to test environmental health, does not replace traditional monitoring, said Martin Bunkowski, an environmental engineer for the Association of German Airports. But \u201cit\u2019s a very clear message for the public because it is easy to understand,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Volker Liebig, a chemist for Orga Lab, who analyzes honey samples twice a year for the D\u00fcsseldorf and six other German airports, said results showed the absence of substances that the lab tested for, like certain hydrocarbons and heavy metals, and the honey \u201cwas comparable to honey produced in areas without any industrial activity.\u201d A much larger data sampling over more time is needed for a definitive conclusion, he said, but preliminary results are promising.<\/p>\n<p>Could bees be modern-day sentinels like the canaries once used as warning signals of toxic gases in coal mines? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/06\/29\/business\/29airports.html?emc=tnt&amp;tntemail1=y\" target=\"_blank\">[Read rest of story]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Testing the honey of local bees for toxins like lead and other heavy metals is the way the air around Dusseldorf Airport and seven other German airports is monitored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17,401],"tags":[556,164,557],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}