SARS-CoV-2 is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Airflows sustain the infection spread, and in densely urbanized areas airborne particulate matters (PMs) are deemed to aggravate the viral transmission. Apis mellifera colonies are used as bioindicators as they allow environmental sampling of different nature, PMs included. This experiment demonstrates for the first time the possible use of honey bee colonies in the SARS-CoV-2 monitoring.

The trial was conducted in Bologna on 18 March 2021, when the third wave of the Italian pandemic was at its peak and environmental conditions allowed high PM concentrations in the air. Sterile swabs were lined up at the hive entrance to sample the dusty material on the body of returning foragers. All of them resulted positive for the target genes of viral SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Likewise, internal samples were taken, but they resulted in no amplification of the target sequences.

This experiment does not support speculations about the role of honey bees or their products in SARS-CoV-2 transmission. However, it indicates a novel use of A. mellifera colonies in the environmental detection of airborne human pathogens, at least in a densely urbanized area, deserving better understanding and possible integration with data from automatic air samplers.

SARS-CoV-2 是导致 COVID-19 大流行的原因。气流维持感染传播，在人口密集的城市化地区，空气中的颗粒物 (PM) 被认为会加剧病毒传播。Apis mellifera菌落被用作生物指示剂，因为它们允许对不同性质的环境进行采样，包括 PM。该实验首次证明了在 SARS-CoV-2 监测中可能使用蜂群。

该试验于 2021 年 3 月 18 日在博洛尼亚进行，当时意大利的第三波大流行正处于高峰期，环境条件允许空气中的 PM 浓度很高。在蜂巢入口处排列着无菌拭子，以对返回的觅食者身上的尘土进行取样。所有这些结果都对病毒 SARS-CoV-2 RNA 的靶基因呈阳性。同样，采集了内部样本，但它们没有导致目标序列的扩增。

该实验不支持关于蜜蜂或其产品在 SARS-CoV-2 传播中的作用的推测。然而，它表明了蜜蜂花菌落在空气传播人类病原体的环境检测中的一种新用途，至少在人口密集的城市化地区，值得更好地理解并可能与来自自动空气采样器的数据进行整合。