It’s important to have available simple and economical methods to estimate the role of environmental pollution. Among many well known methods, the biological indicators take a main role: some living organisms reveal the presence of environmental pollution and offer, conversely to other systems, the advantages in economical terms for the phenomenon of bioaccumulation which makes them ideal for this type of analysis.

In this viewpoint bees are useful not only for their fundamental role of pollinators to maintain biodiversity, but also because bees are excellent sentinels of the presence of environmental pollution: their morphology and the modality with which they carry out their biological functions guarantee accumulation of pollution in various biological matrix.

In fact the bees bodies are covered with hairs and through micro withdrawal of water, nectar, pollen and melata in their flight range about 3 km from the nest, they can intercept the substances with which they come into contact. Besides having less genes in the system of managing stress, they are more sensitive to agrochemicals than other insects.

Among the various matrix in which they can accumulate traceable substances like heavy metals, chemical compounds derived from benzene or radioactive isotopes, the most interesting and useful seem to be the individual as a whole, the wax and the propolis, probably for the percentage of fat substances contained in their insides. On the contrary, honey doesn’t seem to accumulate in a significant way such substances given the elevated water concentration. Honey can contaminate from its constituents (pollen and nectar) or through bees during the transformation of the nectar. The nectar, nevertheless, contains a low concentration of lipids and is a poor accumulator of aromatic hydrocarbons, and in consequence also the honey.

The monitoring of environmental pollution through the use of living organisms favours the comprehension of the complex systems that regulate on one hand the dynamics of the animal population (for example the susceptibility or resistance to certain environment, and so the adaptive potential) and on the other hand allow us to have an indirect estimation of the fundamental factors for human health, such as the quantity of the pollution. In this viewpoint, beekeeping gives an excellent example of possible decline of a traditional productive activity for the means of research, integrated and interactive with the environment mosaic in which it becomes part of. Also, beekeeping is particularly relevant zones defined as protected areas: in fact the national law 313/2004 defines and underlines the dual and symbiotic connection between the active productivity and the environment in which it becomes part of. The environment and the bees in this case form the actors in a unique scene: if on one hand the production of honey and other beekeeping products are strongly influenced by the quality of the environment, on the other hand the bees contribute in reaching and maintaining elevated levels of biodiversity with the pollination of flowering plants.

In this viewpoint, the BUONO Association is committed to the study of the presence of pollution in the territory where the apiary is situated (Oasi LIPU of Castel di Guido), in collaboration with the Lazio and Toscana’s Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute / Experimental Zooprofilattico Institute of Lazio e Tuscany Regions (IZSLT) and with the section of Hygiene of the Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases of the Rome University Sapienza.