Pesticide residues in different honey types and public health risk assessment

Abstract

Honeybees and humans are endangered by pesticides in daily agricultural production. The aim of this research was to investigate pesticide residues in different honey types and to assess the risk to public health. A total of 88 honey samples originating from pine, multifloral, sunflower, acacia, linden, and canola were collected and analysed by a QuEChERS method. The hazard quotient (HQ) was used to evaluate the risk of detected pesticide residues. Analysis of pine honey did not detect any residue of investigated pesticides. The most frequently detected pesticides in the honey samples were chlorpyrifos ranging between 15.1 µg/kg (linden honey) to 22.3 µg/kg (multifloral honey), clothianidin ranging between 12.0 µg/kg (acacia honey) to 22.0 µg/kg (canola honey), dimethoate ranging between 8.9 µg/kg (multifloral honey) to 18.9 µg/kg (canola honey), and thiamethoxam ranging between 4.2 µg/kg (linden honey) to 15.6 µg/kg (canola honey), respectively. The lowest estimated daily intake (EDI) of 128 × 10-3 μg/kg of body weight per day was found in acacia honey, and the highest EDI of 265 × 10-3 μg/kg of body weight per day was found in canola honey. Similar values of EDI were determined for multifloral, sunflower, and linden honey (186 × 10-3, 187 × 10-3, and 183 × 10-3), respectively. The HQ value for pine honey was 0 indicating that this honey is the safest for consumption, however, the other types of honey investigated in this study posed no risk to humans after potential consumption.