Investigation of combwax of honeybees with high-temperature gas chromatography and high-temperature gas chromatography–chemical ionization mass spectrometry: II: High-temperature gas chromatography–chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Abstract

Crude combwax of six various honey bee species have been analyzed by high-temperature gas chromatography (HTGC)–chemical ionization mass spectrometry after a two-step silylation procedure. An optimized chromatographic procedure, described previously, enables the separation of high-molecular mass lipid compounds resulting in a characteristic fingerprint of the combwaxes of different honeybee species. The coupling of HTGC to mass spectrometry requires appropriate instrumentation in order to achieve sufficient sensitivity at high elution temperatures and avoid loss of chromatographic resolution. Chemical ionization was carried out using methane as reagent gas in order to determine the molecular mass of the individual compounds by means of abundant quasi molecular ions. To confirm the presence of unsaturated wax esters, ammonia was used as reagent gas. More than 80 lipid constituents were separated and characterized by their mass spectra. Representative chemical ionization mass spectra of individual compounds are presented. Both, HTGC–flame ionization detection data and the results of the HTGC–mass spectrometric investigations enabled a rapid profiling of the individual classes of compounds in crude combwaxes.