Bees may seem a surprising choice as a monitoring tool. But their sensitivity to chemicals has made some scientists big fans.

The buzzing, pollen-loving insects have been utilised for potential bomb detectors at airport, landmine seekers, and pollution monitors.

Using living organisms to test environmental health is known as bio-monitoring, and it dates back to the classic canary-in-a-coal-mine trick. Now the New York Times has a nice story on how the Düsseldorf International Airport and seven other airports are using bees to monitor air quality.

If plants have been exposed to toxins, that would show up in the nectar and any subsequent honey from bees that visit the flowers. By keeping hives near an airport, you should have a natural accumulator of any pollutants.

The first batch of this year’s honey harvest from some 200,000 airport bees was tested in early June, and indicated that substances such as certain hydrocarbons and heavy metals were far below official limits.

Local bee-keepers keep the bees, bottling up the honey – Düsseldorf Natural – which was comparable to honey produced in areas without any industrial activity and can be gifted, reports the Times.

Image: photo by MB Jarrosak via Flickr under creative commons.