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Microplastics in Our Hives and Honey Bees

Posted October 27, 2025

Microplastics (MPs) are tiny plastic particles (or fibers) that have become widespread pollutants in various environments, including honey bee habitats. They can originate from consumer products, plastic waste, degradation of larger plastic items and even materials beekeepers introduce into their hives. MPs can accumulate in honey bee tissues (brain, midgut, Malpighian tubules, trachea, and haemolymph), potentially compromising honey bee health, behavior, and colony dynamics. Research indicates that MPs can negatively affect honey bees in several ways:

Gut Microbiome: Exposure to MPs can reduce the diversity of gut flora in honey bees, which is crucial for their immunity and detoxification processes. While acute toxicity may not lead to immediate deaths, the long-term health of bees is compromised due to changes in their gut microbiome and overall vitality.
Weight and Reproduction: Studies have shown that honey bees exposed to MPs may experience weight loss and reduced reproductive success.
Prevalence in Honey: MPs have been found in honey samples, indicating that they can accumulate in the food chain.

MPs have been detected in various ecosystems, including remote areas like the Arctic. They can enter honey bee hives through contaminated forage, water sources, or direct introduction from hive parts or products. Understanding the impact of MPs on honey bees is crucial for their conservation, the health of ecosystems they support, and the products they produce.

Plant Exposure

For decades, plastic particles were thought to be too large to move through the physical barriers of intact plant tissue. However, recent studies uncovered that MPs, as well as their smaller counterparts termed “nanoplastics”, have potential to contaminate edible plants, including vegetables consumed by humans. Researchers examined how crop plants (wheat (Triticum aestivum) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa)) absorbed various MPs from treated wastewater in hydroponic cultures, sand matrices, and sandy soil. The findings supported the idea that submicrometre and micrometre-sized polystyrene and polymethylmethacrylate particles penetrated both species’ steles through the crack-entry mode at lateral root emergence sites. The efficient absorption of submicrometre plastic is facilitated by this crack-entry pathway and the characteristics of the polymeric particles. Following that, the plastic particles were transferred from the roots to the shoots. This raises obvious concerns, as this process might introduce MPs into the food chain in general, and nectar and pollen specifically.

Contaminants and Pesticides

Another concerning issue is that MPs can adsorb pollutants and thus become both a source and a sink for them due to their lipophilicity. Since more of the surface area of MPs is exposed, their chemical reactivity increases, and degradation of MPs into smaller plastic particles can enhance adsorption of contaminants on MPs. Weathering, sunlight, pH, long exposure times, and the hydrophobicity of POPs are all factors that can affect the kinetics of contaminant adsorption to MPs. Polyethylene (PE) MPs, for example, have been reported to be strong carriers of pesticides in agricultural fields, potentially exacerbating pesticide exposure effects on bees. Additionally, the role of MPs in pathogen transmission is still a hot topic. As the amount of plastic debris in the environment grows, the possibility of MP acting as pathogen vectors is becoming a growing concern. As a result, further research is required to see whether MPs can spread pathogens among honey bees in general and viruses in particular.

Optical micrographs highlight the presence of MFs and micro fragments on a) honeybees and b) pollen grains.

Honey Bee Exposure

MPs, consisting primarily of polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyacrylamide polymers, have recently been found in 12% of samples of honey collected in Ecuador. Recently, MPs have also been identified in honey bees collected from apiaries in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as nearby semiurban and rural areas. Given these documented exposures, assessment of their effects is critical for understanding the risks of MP exposure to honey bees. Exposure to polystyrene (PS)-MPs decreased diversity of the honey bee gut microbiota, followed by changes in gene expression related to oxidative damage, detoxification, and immunity.

Honey Exposure

MPs are tiny plastic particles less than 5 mm in size, can have different shapes (fiber and fragment), originate from various sources, and include the breakdown of larger plastic items and direct manufacturing. They have been detected in honey, raising concerns about food safety and environmental health.

Sources of MPs in honey can vary from:

Plastic Packaging: Honey is often stored in plastic containers, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which can leach microplastics into the product.
Environmental Contamination: Bees can pick up microplastics from contaminated water sources, air, nectar, and plastics used in the hive.

Degradation of Larger Plastics: Larger plastic debris breaks down into smaller particles through environmental processes, contributing to the MP load in the environment.

MPs are normally identified in honey samples through various detection methods, including:

Raman Spectroscopy: Used to identify specific types of microplastics in honey.

Mass Spectrometry: Effective for detecting smaller particles, including nano plastics.

What can we stop doing?

MPs, as an environmental contaminant, pose a significant risk to both animal and human health through the food and water supply chains. Honey, widely recognized as a safe and health-oriented food product, may become compromised if its production process involves non-biodegradable MPs. Because of this, beekeepers should maintain awareness of what they are intentionally and unintentionally introducing into their hives, the colonies complex ecosystem, and the honey bees’ biology.

We know that honey bees lick and chew on just about everything inside a hive. That includes fabrics, paper, cardboard, Swiffer Sheets, plastic treatment applicators, plastic frames and frame parts, plastic queen excluders, plastic feeders, plastic entrance disks, foam insulation, tape, reflective insulation, sticky boards, plastic bottom trays, etc., etc., etc. If they can chew it up, they will and if they can’t, they will spread propolis on it. With our convenience-oriented throw-away culture how many unnatural products for cost or expediency reasons are we exposing our bees and ultimately their products to that we consume without a thought.

Honey bees were intended to live outside or in a natural wood environment (tree cavity). Over thousands of years, they have developed natural defenses to pathogen present in their local environment but in the last 200 years of industrialization they have been forced to survive pathogens and pests they aren’t prepared for. We may feel that we can’t change our global climate or national agro-industries but we as beekeepers can certainly ensure that we only introduce natural materials into our hives. That we consider what the bees might come into contact with, what they might chew, and what they might ingest.

None of us would take a handful of plastic and eat it. What do we unintentionally allow our bees to eat?

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