PFAS in honey bees: Insects enable monitoring of pollutants in the environment

Bees absorb pollutants from the environment and thus provide up-to-date information about their distribution. Photo: iredman - stock.adobe.com

PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – have increasingly come under scrutiny in recent years as so-called “forever chemicals”. These artificially produced substances are used in the manufacture of many everyday products. They are harmful to the environment and human health, difficult to break down and accumulate everywhere, in flora, fauna and even in humans. Researchers at the University of Graz have now used honeybees to investigate the occurrence of PFAS at different times and in different land use areas. The study shows that bees and the pollen they collect are ideal for monitoring environmental toxins. The insects absorb the pollutants, allowing conclusions to be drawn about their spatial and seasonal distribution.

“PFAS was detected in quantifiable amounts in almost all of the bees and pollen we examined,” reports Jörg Feldmann. The chemist from the University of Graz has also been tracking environmental toxins in wild boars and whale brains. “When it comes to monitoring pollutants, however, bees have a significant advantage over these mammals. Because they only live for a few weeks, the chemicals they absorb cannot accumulate in their bodies over a longer period of time. This means that the measured concentrations always provide up-to-date information about the presence of environmental toxins,” explains biologist Robert Brodschneider.

For their latest study on PFAS in bees and pollen, the researchers collected data from April to August at six locations in Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Styria with different land uses, in urban and semi-urban, rural and agricultural areas. The temporal and spatial differences were remarkable. Site-specific PFAS patterns indicated potential sources of contamination, such as the use of pesticides containing fluorine. No direct correlation was found with the type of land use.

“In total, we detected nine different PFAS in 90 samples,” reports Viktoria Müller, environmental chemist at the University of Graz and the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, UK. “Bees in the hive had the highest average total of all concentrations, followed by forager bees and pollen,” the researcher continues. Differences in the occurrence of PFAS between sample types, especially between foragers and hive bees, indicated different routes of exposure, such as uptake via pollen, airborne particles or contaminated surfaces. “We were able to show that forager bees introduce PFAS into the hive either via their bodies or via nectar and pollen,” says Müller.

“Knowledge of seasonal and location-specific differences in PFAS concentrations is an important prerequisite for creating contamination maps for specific areas,” says Feldmann, explaining the significance of the study. Further research will be needed to clarify which factors are responsible for local and temporal variations.

Publication:
PFAS in the buzz: Seasonal biomonitoring with honey bees (Apis mellifera) and bee-collected pollen
Viktoria Müller, Jörg Feldmann, Eileen Prieler, Robert Brodschneider
Environmental Pollution, Volume 382, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2025.126750

©University of Graz / Pichler

Robert Brodschneider, Viktoria Müller, and Jörg Feldmann (from left) investigated the occurrence of the PFAS "forever chemicals" in bees and pollen. Photo: University of Graz / Pichler

Gudrun Pichler

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