Paper published: Biomonitoring with bees and bee products: multielement profiles including technology‑critical elements

Honeybees and bee products provide a promising means of monitoring TCEs in the environment over time. Within TecEUS, apicultural samples were taken in a collaboration with Altes Gymnasium Leoben, a public highschool with three bee hives in the school garden campaigns
Bees as sample collectors - Cooperation with the "Gymbee" project at Altes Gymnasium Leoben

The results were published in the Springer journal Monatshefte für Chemie (Chemical Monthly) in a paper entitled “Biomonitoring with bees and bee products: multielement profiles including technology‑critical elements” by Simone Trimmel, Michael Schober, Johanna A. Lube, Thomas C. Meisel, Thomas Prohaska and Johanna Irrgeher (all Montanuniversität Leoben):
ttps://link.springer.com/article/

The multielement data was evaluated using univariate and multivariate statistical approaches to investigate differences between matrices and the behaviour of individual elements. Element mass fractions generally decreased in the order propolis > bee > pollen > wax ≈ honeycomb ≈ honey. Hierarchical cluster analysis separated the samples into four groups: propolis, bees, pollen, and a joint cluster comprising honey, honeycomb and wax. Based on principal component analysis, two analyte groups were be separated by their loadings, whereby one was interpreted as predominantly particle-associated and the other as more soluble/bioavailable.