"She and her colleagues think that fuel burned by ships in Vancouver’s harbor, as well as emissions from cars in the city’s streets, might be sources of the lead."
There's already one correction about the fuel - might need another. Is it accurate that cars are still emitting lead in their emissions? I'm pretty sure leaded gas for cars isn't available in North America.
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The interesting thing about urban bee colonies is that they don't seem to be experiencing the colony collapse that industrial agriculture bee colonies experience. It is certainly worth studying bee health.
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@ThirdThots. Urban bees are generally left to live in their hives, rather than trucked around to farms to pollinate crops... "queen of the sun" is a great documentary on the problems in how we keep bees for industrial agriculture...
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@ThirdThots Industrial agriculture feeds bees one monoculture at a time: almonds, blueberries, citrus... so these bees might not be getting as balanced a diet as they do if they're urban bees where they can collect nectar and pollen from a variety of flowers including flowering weeds. That might give these bees more nutrition and therefore better immunity. The best thing anyone concerned about pollinators can do is plant food for them - without the use of pesticides of course!
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On what do you base your question? There is no evidence that so-called urban bees have fewer or more diseases than commercially managed hives.
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