Multi-Residue Confirmation of Pesticides in Honey using Solid Supported Liquid Extraction

Several Belgian beekeepers were asked to shut down their hives due to withering of the hive. The cause of the withering was unknown. A multi-factoral study was initiated, which included a multi-class pesticide residue study from honey, to determine if pesticides were the cause of the decline. The extensive distribution of pesticides causes bees that have been fed on contaminated blossoms to transfer pesticide residues into honey. Multi-residue confi rmation methods to identify and quantify widely used pesticides, which could have been the source of the bees’ decline, needed to be developed. Previously published papers already report determination methods for pesticides in honey, however, most of them analyze only one or two pesticide groups, such as organochlorine or organophosphoros residues. This application note shows the development and validation of 17 pesticides and metabolites of different chemical classes: