The Observation After a year of beekeeping, I started noticing something odd: the honey from my urban Manchester hives had a slightly different taste and colour than honey from rural hives I’d sampled. Not bad. Just different. Darker, more complex, hints of something metallic. Which raised a question: what exactly is in urban honey? Bees as Environmental Samplers It turns out honeybees are extraordinary environmental sampling machines: Foraging Range A single colony: