Honeybees help gather data about a city's health

Honeybee on flower.
(Image credit: Martyn Large / 500px /Getty Images)

Analyzing honeybees could provide key insight into a city's microbiome as well as the health of its people, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Microbiome. It explains that "honeybees may be effective collaborators in gathering samples of urban microbiota," due to their foraging habits.

"Honeybees will gather a vast number of microbes day to day, far beyond things they are seeking out," said Kevin Slavin, who worked on the report. "They've been optimized by evolution to do everything that the swabs do." The research team collected samples from hives and hove debris in New York City, Melbourne, Venice, and Tokyo. They found that each city had its own "unique genetic signature," per The Independent. "It didn't feel like a disjointed metric from all of the other things that we know about these cities," said Elizabeth Hénaff, lead author of the report. "It actually kind of felt like a puzzle piece that we didn't even know existed."

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Devika Rao, The Week US

 Devika Rao has worked as a staff writer at The Week since 2022, covering science, the environment, climate and business. She previously worked as a policy associate for a nonprofit organization advocating for environmental action from a business perspective.