The production of beekeeping plays a crucial role in the population's nutrition. Bees yield valuable dietary products, such as honey, and provide raw materials for the food industry, such as beeswax. In addition to these primary products, bees produce royal jelly, flower pollen, propolis, homogenate of drone larvae, and bee venom. In regions with advanced agriculture, bees are utilized to pollinate entomophilous crops. Bee pollination enhances plants' similarity and yield, improving agricultural product quality. Honey-producing bees consume pollen, with flower pollen from nectariferous plants serving as the raw material, followed by bee bread, which is brought into the hive. However, the agroclimatic conditions in various regions of Ukraine only sometimes provide sufficient diversity of nectariferous plants to adequately meet the protein and mineral nutrition needs of bees. Minerals in animal organisms perform crucial functions, providing structural integrity to the skeleton and constituting essential components of organic compounds, vitamins, and enzymatic systems. In contemporary animal production, heavy metals threaten the health of both humans and animals. According to established norms, many of these metals are vital elements that must be included in the animal diet. Inadequate or excessive levels of these elements in the animal body can lead to the inactivation of enzymatic systems, impaired reproduction, decreased productivity, and reduced product quality. Heavy metals, especially mercury, lead, chromium, and nickel, are more dangerous toxins in living organisms at elevated concentrations. The chemical composition of living organisms and their impact on geochemical processes varies. To ensure normal vitality and the production of high-quality animal products, animals must be provided with a balanced diet and an optimal content of minerals that contribute to increased productivity and production efficiency. Therefore, studying the content of heavy metals such as iron, copper, zinc, lead, cobalt, and cadmium in honey obtained under different agroecological conditions in Ukraine is of significant economic importance. The research results indicate that the content of heavy metals in honey from the Western region, except iron and zinc, was higher than in the Southern region. Specifically, for copper, this advantage amounted to 86.725 mg/kg or 1.4 times, for lead – 50.203 mg/kg or 2.8 times, for cobalt – 57.865 mg/kg or 24.2 times, and for cadmium – 4.663 mg/kg or 2.7 times. Honey from the Southern region had a higher iron content of 0.237 mg/kg or 1.1 times, and zinc by 4.412 mg/kg or 5.5 times compared to honey from the Western region. Based on the obtained data, it is established that honey from the Western region has a higher content of heavy metals than honey from the Southern region, indicating more significant contamination of nectariferous plants in the Western region.
Read full abstract
Dec 4, 2023
Natalya M Kalashnikova 
Open Access
