Total Mineral Content and Some Chemical Elements Determination in bee Honey From Bosnia & Herzegovina (B&H)

Today, there are many published papers of the content of mineral substances, chemical elements and heavy metals in honey and bee products all around the world. However, the natural content of mineral substances in honey plants changes in a negative direction as the result of global pollution, which puts at risk of the contamination of bee pasture and thus bees and man, finally. Chemical elements in honey and bee products can come in three ways: from the environment, feeding bees, processing and packaging honey. A beekeeper can’t control an environmental conditions, but their role is crucial in the last two steps. Metals in honey can change its organoleptic properties. So far, about 54 chemical elements have been detected in honey, of which macro elements, many micro elements and heavy and toxic metals. In this paper, 12 samples of honey were tested, which were collected from beekeepers from different geographical areas of B&H. The beekeepers declared the samples as meadow honeys except one sample. In this paper, a total content of mineral substances, electroconductivity, and the individual content of chemical elements (Na, Mg, Al, K, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Se, Ag, Ba) were investigated. In work are used conductometer Con 11; Microwave Sineo Jupiter– B; ICPMS Agilent 7700 Series. The average of electroconductivity ranged from 0.228 to 1.116 mS/cm and mineral substances from 0.113 to 0.566 %. Based on the results, no sample of honey belongs to the type of honeydew, however, samples whose electroconductivity values were greater than 0.8 mS/cm belong to the type of mixed honey between nectar honey and honeydew. The content of K was the highest and ranged in 391.73 - 3017.93 mg/kg, then Mg ranged in 11.14 -166.65 mg/kg. According to its content in honey chemical elements have following order: K