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Pesticides residues in honey

Josef van der Steen

September 2023

Summary
Pesticides can be detected in honey. There is nothing that a beekeeper can do about it, because pesticides are in the environment and bees collect these pesticide residues along with their food. Based on the recent EFSA report on pesticides in food, the most detected pesticides in honey are the agricultural pesticides thiacloprid, acetamiprid, bimoxystrobin, glyphosate, chlorpyriphos, fosetyl, flonicamid, boscalid, and chlorfluazuron. The varroa control substances amitraz and coumaphos were also detected. In about 4 out of 5 honey samples no pesticides were found in quantifiable amounts, and in 1 out of 5 honeys pesticides could be detected. Only in a few cases did the amount of pesticides exceed the MRL (Maximum Residue Level) threshold, but in all cases, the honey samples analysed met the food safety / trade threshold. How pesticides enter the hive, how the honey bee colony cleans the honey, and how pesticides in honey may relate to honey consumption and toxic effects, is described in this newsletter. Continue reading “PESTICIDES RESIDUES IN HONEY – CORRECTED VERSION OF NEWSLETTER OF THE 31TH SEPTEMEMBER”

Podcast on where we are after samplinground 7, we are so close to the final sampling round and there are samples all over europe on the way to the laboratories. We are so excited. So how are we doing. Listen to the sum up.

The national coordinators of Portugal Alice Pinto and Andreia Quaresma from Instituto Politécnico de Bragança made the big tour, visiting all Citizens Scientist to support the start up of INSIGNIA sampling in Portugal. Have look on the nice video and see how and what they did. Even Portugal has “not so nice weather”. Really good investment of the coordinators. Secures a safe startup and getting closely connected to the Citizens Scientist.

Today’s regular National Coordinators’ Cafe was the first since the start of the 2023 sampling in all 27 EU Member States. This was an opportunity for National Coordinators to meet informally online with members of the consortium to sort out any problems that might occur. There were some questions about different hive designs needing slight modifications to what is being done, but overall it seems that all is running smoothly with much enthusiasm from the citizen scientist beekeepers involved.

This year’s Austrian Citizen Science Conference took place from April 19 to 21, 2023 at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. The conference was initiated by the network “Österreich forscht” (BOKU Vienna) and in cooperation with Ars Electronica and the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft.

Robert Brodschneider and Kristina Gratzer from the University of Graz participated together with approximately 150 other Citizen Science enthusiasts.

Continue reading “Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2023 in Linz”

INSIGNIA-EU is now running in 27 EU countries, with 23 languages, having 316 Citizens Scientist using 632 bee colonies. It is with great pleasure and excitement that we have a short talk on the 4^th sampling day for the startup round. Have a look.

Project preparations are in full swing throughout the EU – also in Austria!

All Austrian participants got their tool boxes, so it was time to enter the next stage . Thus, on April 14th,  we organized a workshop for beekeepers in Austria. The main goal was to give instructions on how to do the sampling for the INSIGNIA-EU fullstudy 2023. As a physical workshop was not possible at this time, we invited all 10 participants to attend to the online worshop, which turned out to work very well. For one person it was not possible to take part, but thanks to advances in technology, we were able to record and provide the entire workshop.

Kristina set-up an empty demonstration beehive and went through the whole sample collection process. The citizen scientists were encouraged to interrupt and ask questions at any time.

Thank you all for the participation and the pleasant atmosphere and interest and good luck to all INSIGNIA-EU citizen scientists for the study start next week!

Kristina Gratzer und Robert Brodschneider

Two INSIGNIAS just finished the very last packing of the toolboxes. They are tired, but very happy. Have a listen!