In January 2018, Greenpeace ordered 12 'Valentine bouquets' from four large online florists in the Netherlands: Fleurop, De Bloemist, Euroflorist and Topbloemen. Greenpeace, in their own words, found 100 times remnants of in total 43 types of crop protection products on the bouquets.
Greenpeace ordered 3 bouquets at every online florist: a small bouquet of roses, one with gerberas and a 'love bouquet' with different flowers such as roses, gerberas, carnations, lilies and chrysanthemums. They had the flowers tested for the presence of 300 pesticide residues.
"We gave special attention thereby to a list that was drawn up by Greenpeace with nine substances that are so harmful to bees that they should be first to be banned", according to the environmental organization. Amongst the found residues there would be several substances that are prohibited in Dutch floriculture, Greenpeace reports.
The Greenpeace report can be seen here (in Dutch).