ANALYZING THE ELEMENTAL MAKEUP OF HONEY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BEE DIETS

Honey bees produce natural food called honey. It is a complex mixture of proteins, sugars, pigments, organic acid, minerals and other elements. Honey is usually produced from nectar. However, in extreme circumstances bees can use other food sources to produce honey. In this study we examined how different food sources effect elemental composition of honey in an extreme nectar dearth. Each bee hive was fed a different diet: commercial sugar patty consisting of ground table sugar mixed with invert syrup was fed to the sugar group (SG); commercial sugar patty was mixed with yeast to make yeast group (YG) feed, pollen to make pollen group (PG) feed and Tenebrio molitor flour to prepare Tenebrio group (TG) feed. Honey was collected from each hive and analyzed for its elemental composition using with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Elements Ag, Hg, Tl and U were not detected in any of the samples. The sum of all analyzed elements had the highest value in honey from PG, followed by similar amounts in YG, TG and lowest in SG. We have found V and Cd only in pollen hive honey. Cr was found in honey from pollen and Tenebrio hives. While Co and Zn were in pollen and yeast hives. Highest concentrations of S, Ca, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se and Sn were observed in PG; Li, Na, Mg, Al, P, Mo and Pb in YG and of B, K, Ba and Sb in TG. Honey bees in SG did not accumulate higher concentrations of any element compared to other three groups. This research suggest that sugar syrup will not provide honey bees with necessary micro- and macro-element needs. They should always be supplemented also with either pollen or pollen substitutes such as yeast or Tenebrio flour.