German Airports Use Bees To Monitor Air Quality 44
The Düsseldorf International Airport and seven other airports in Germany have come up with a unique way of monitoring air quality; they use bees. The airports test the bees' honey twice a year for toxins, and batches that turn up clean are bottled and given away. From the article: "Assessing environmental health using bees as 'terrestrial bioindicators' is a fairly new undertaking, said Jamie Ellis, assistant professor of entomology at the Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory, University of Florida in Gainesville. 'We all believe it can be done, but translating the results into real-world solutions or answers may be a little premature.' Still, similar work with insects to gauge water quality has long been successful."
spelling bees (Score:2, Funny)
And now we got to Ollie Williams (Score:4, Funny)
with the Blackuweather airport forecast. Ollie, what's the air quality like there?
Ollie: [face covered in red welts and puffing up] It's full of bees!
Shocking results (Score:0, Funny)
Research has found the air in Düsseldorf contains massive amounts of bee poop contamination.
Researchers are bereft of an explanation for this phenomenon but are going to try a control group of pigeons.